


A Man for All Seasons

by dreadwulf



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, FIx It, Jaime fix it fic, Post Season 7, Slow Burn, TV continuity, no seriously really slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-21 03:26:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 84,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12448695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadwulf/pseuds/dreadwulf
Summary: Jaime Lannister is riding North to join the fight against the Night's King. At last he is free of his family, doing the right thing, and becoming the hero he was meant to be. Unfortunately, nothing is going according to plan.





	1. The Long Walk

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of problems with Season 7 of Game of Thrones. Although there were some aspects of what they were doing with Jaime that intrigued me, it's still so far off from the character I love in the books and there's not a lot of time in the final season to get him to a place where he and Brienne can convincingly be together. 
> 
> But.... that's what fanfiction is for. So I'm going with everything that happened in Season 7 and the version of Jaime we had there and trying to play that out in a way that's satisfying to me so that I'll be ready to accept whatever we get in Season 8. It's going to be a slow burn and there's some garbage to take care of before we can get to the good stuff, and I'm a slow writer without a lot of free time, but I hope you will be patient with me. 
> 
> Tags and warnings are subject to change, but be assured this is a Jaime/Brienne fic.

Jaime is on foot by the time he reaches Winterfell, and nearly delirious.

The snow meets him in drifts up to his waist, and he plods through them mindlessly as a horse at a plow. He’s had days of this to set his pace, ever since he’d had to leave the road to avoid the northern soldiers increasingly congesting the way North.

His own horse had died days ago, the poor beast frozen over in the night while he was sleeping nearby in a crude shelter. He’d had to give up on Inns and taverns by then; a Lannister alone in the North was seldom welcome anywhere. At one tavern he had been recognized at supper and nearly murdered by Tully sympathizers, barely fending off the untrained civilians at swordpoint long enough to flee. At the next inn he’d been robbed as he slept of all but the coins he kept on his person. Cutpurses were everywhere, much of the common folk now resorting to petty thievery to survive in the waning years of war, and now the coming of winter. After that he slept rough, even as the ground beneath him went from hard and cold to crisp and icy, to a thick bed of covering snow. Then his horse had gone and died, and he gave up on sleeping through the night altogether.

For a time he had ridden in a wagon belonging to a family with wide eyes and few questions, and dozed lightly with his hand on the pommel of his sword. That leg of the journey cost nearly all the gold that had not been stolen. The last of it he had traded for thicker boots when the old ones had worn completely through, and woolen clothing. There has been no chance to buy a finer coat, relying only on a fur cape that he had taken from a dead man in the road. He is not above petty thievery himself, as it turns out. He keeps the cloak draped across his face, where it has frozen to his beard in the icy wind. All the other supplies for his journey are gone now, and he has only his sword and his person, for what that is worth.

If he had left a week earlier, when the rest of the Northerners left, he might have traveled twice or even thrice as fast. But the winter arrived in earnest now and the snows piled just ahead of him grew deeper and deeper. Jaime has never seen more than a few inches of snow, having so rarely gone North, and nothing like these fat clusters of flakes falling from the sky in a steady shower. He hadn’t realized it could accumulate so fast, that stopping for an hour to rest his horse would render his path unrecognizable. He hadn't known it could become too cold to snow, that the skies would swell shut in the blistering freeze. He would hope to make time on the roads at those times despite the miserable cold, but the ground cover froze over treacherously and his poor horse even when healthy would not trot, only pick his way nervously over the ice. As soon as the air warmed enough to be bearable, the snows would begin again and pile up visibly so that not even on the Kingsroad would footprints remain. The less-traffiked roads were worse, and grew increasingly desperate. No matter how bad the weather, bandits roamed, so covered in furs they looked like upright bears, and Jaime would have to double back and find a new route to avoid them. Troops marched the roads headed in all directions, to one conflict or other, none of them his. He had to steal his way north in fits and starts like a fugitive, which he surely was. Only when he left the road and plunged due North could he travel steadily and without constant threats, other than the threat of freezing to death.

Poor planning, all of it. There had been no chance to make arrangements, with the Queensguard potentially on his trail, but he could have done better. At the time he had been in no condition to think ahead. He had left the Capital in a daze, urgent to be away, temporarily light and free and convinced of his direction. The lightness had not lasted and the daze had lifted, leaving him alone on the road with too many dark thoughts and his burden of uncertainty growing heavier by the moment. The only clarity remains his direction. North. He must go North. His future beyond that is murky, but he needs to reach the Starks, needs to talk to Tyrion, and he needs to see Brienne.

The snowdrifts push against him like waves against the shore. He is almost grateful for them by now, because they leave him no chance to think on the events of the past months. All of his energy is now directed towards moving one leg and then the other, pushing into and pulling out of banks of heavy, wet snow. Over and over again. It is the most literal possible manifestation of what he has endured in the last year. Buffeted at all sides by the elements and ill-equipped against them. Whatever comes, he must keep going, keep pushing forward, with no relief or aid in sight. No time for reflection or consideration, just endless, miserable plodding.

For the past several days, until the pale daylight sputters out, he would push on until his teeth are audibly chattering and then find some pitiful excuse for shelter, bolster himself as best he can against the cold, and curl up shivering until the morning.  

But the stars are coming out now and the temperature is dropping rapidly. Dully sensing that he is nearing his destination, he forces himself to continue on into the night. By now his surroundings have taken on the hazy, lurching blur of a nightmare, and all thought and feeling have retreated to a distant corner of his mind. Between the stumbling and the slow retreat of sense, it is much like being deeply, insensibly drunk.

Of course he has not been truly well for some time. Back at King’s Landing he had slept only after draining a bottle of wine to drown out worry and misery, and sometimes not even then. After the Targaryen attack he had occupied himself at all hours with Cersei, with making her see reason, with keeping her satisfied and peaceable, and keeping his own thoughts away from dragonfire and failure. His own wounds from battle had never been properly seen to, not with Qyburn serving as both Hand and Maester. He has grown only more thin and unsteady along the journey.

What he needs now, more than anything, is rest. But there will be no resting tonight. If he stops now, he fears he may not rise again. His limbs are stiffer and more painful every day, and it grows more and more difficult to think clearly. By now he truly wants nothing more than to lie down in the snow, but he has no choice in the matter. He is going North. He must go North. His breath comes faster and his heart races with the effort of keeping in motion, and often he imagines hearing Tywin berating his poor condition, as merciless in his grave as he had ever been in life. The heir to House Lannister cannot be so weak as to fall before mere weather. Not even in the North can he escape that burden.

When he sees Brienne. When he sees her, he can be weak, he can rest. She at least might forgive him that. She has already seen him at his worst. It seems only natural to go to her now. 

The towers of Winterfell don’t pierce through his haze until they are nearly upon him; he has to stop moving to look up, tilting his body backwards and nearly falling in the process. His neck has gone stiff and painful and he has been staring down at his feet for hours, and it takes real effort to lift his head. Recognizing his goal inspires speed if not good cheer. Night grows deeper and what strength he has left is fading. He re-routes himself to the direction of the gates, the drifts dwindling as the snowpack begins to resemble a road again.

The guards at the gate stop him. They are great furry blobs with helmets on, comical in their sameness. All northmen look like this to Jaime, more or less. They surround him, four or five large men with their hands on their swords. His eyes scan the courtyard beyond them for a familiar form but can make little sense of the milleu within. There are so many refugees crammed within Winterfell’s gates that they make a porridge of faces he does not know. He means to demand entry as an emissary of the queen, as an ally to the King in the North, or some other likely-sounding story that would not get him killed, but in the end he says nothing. With his face and hair covered and his sorry condition they assume him a refugee and debate amongst themselves whether any room remains, with a tone that makes it clear the answer will be no.

They ask if he is able-bodied for work within, and he checks that his golden hand is thoroughly covered by a glove, and nods wordlessly. While they begin to confer, surely leading up to demanding some sort of bribe, he searches desperately through the crowds and at last spies a familiar face. Young Podrick Payne, pushing through with his shoulders, his arms piled high with firewood. He hugs his armload close, as though it were precious gold. Other figures are restrained by guards from moving beyond the courtyard, but Podrick seems to have the run of the place. He's made himself useful to the guards perhaps, or more likely they fear the wrath of the Maid of Tarth if they impede the young squire in his duties.

“Podrick!” he barks out, and men all around look up at the jagged rasp of his voice. Cautiously, he unwraps the fur cape from his head. If any of these men know his face, they give no sign. They would have no reason to, this far North, but still he should be careful.

Pod wanders over with a quizzical look on his face. At first the lad does not recognize him, and when he does it is with a kind of alarm that makes him wonder how he must look. If it is anything like he feels, he must look like the wight he was shown at the Dragonpit. Startled, Podrick drops some of the firewood at his feet and furry men all around scramble to claim it.

“I know this man, I have need of him!” Pod shouts to the guards, awkwardly stepping over the refugees surrounding him. The last of the firewood he tosses to one side to clear himself a path, frowning anxiously. Then he takes Jaime by the arm and pulls him past the gates, leading him through the crowded courtyard. “What are you doing here, my lord?” he says with some concern.

It has been some days since last he spoke, and Jaime’s voice is nearly too hoarse to be understood. “Brienne. I must see Brienne.”

“She’s… busy.” Podrick looks around them hastily and pulls him aside into a quiet corner. “Shall I take you to the Lady of Winterfell? Lord Tyrion is here, should I…?”

Exhaustion is overtaking Jaime now that he stands still. He weaves from one side to another like a drunkard, trying to keep his feet. He shakes his head, mumbling insistently. “I must see Brienne.”

Podrick is holding onto his arms as though Jaime will fall over at any moment. “You’re nearly frozen solid, my Lord. Your lips are blue.” Worried, he looks around again. “The Maester is occupied, but maybe Sam—all right, all right!” Pod cuts him off as he begins his litany again. “I don’t know what the northmen will do if somebody recognizes you. I will take you to My Lady’s room and see if I can find her for you. Come.”

From there it is a maze of crowds and dark corridors, and Jaime sees little of it. He is nearly asleep on his feet, following Pod’s grasp on his arm. Nearly there, nearly there.

Then Podrick opens a door and they enter a tiny, cramped room with a single straw mattress, no adornments whatsoever, probably a servant’s quarters.  Jaime sighs with relief. Yes, of course, this would be her room. He’s made it.

“I will bring her as quickly as I can, my lord. You should take off your wet things…”

Podrick says more than that, but Jaime turns towards the bed and collapses onto it, cape and boots and all splayed on top of the thin rough blankets. His stiff limbs seize painfully at the sudden stop, but still he could weep with relief. Brienne’s room, her bed, her things. He can feel her presence here and soon he will see her. At last he can rest.

After all this time, he can rest.

Then he slips under the surface of consciousness and is buried in snow.

 

* * *

 

Jaime awakens shivering violently. All of his limbs are shaking and seizing and his skin sears with a thousand pinpricks. He starts to groan and manages only a sharp exhale through a swollen throat.

Someone has pulled his boots off and his socks too, and his feet are encased in fur. He can barely feel the warmth, but the fur is blessedly soft against his suffering blisters. The same sure hands are pulling the soaking wet clothes from his skin and replacing them with clean linens. Huge, strong hands, but strikingly gentle. A touch he remembers well.

“Brienne,” he forces painfully through his sore throat.

“Shh.” She moves briskly about her task, more forcefully now that she knows he’s awake. His sodden taberd is pulled up and peeled off over his head with no help from him, and she maneuvers him smoothly to ease a new shirt over his shoulders and settle him back onto the bed. 

Still shaking uncontrollably, he watches her moving in the dim light. Someone has built a fire, and it glows around her familiar form – her crooked nose, her thin blonde hair, her wind-chapped skin. She has taken off her own fur cape and spread it over his legs, leaving only her tunic and trousers on. Somehow she is even larger than he had remembered, or perhaps she holds herself differently now. She takes up more space, seems comfortable in a new way.  She is pulling his shabby cape out from under him and shaking the ice crystals from it, brushing them off the bed.

“ _Someone_ ,” Brienne says brusquely, “thought it wise to climb onto _my_ bed with snow all over them, their boots still on, and frozen half to death. Someone with _no sense whatsoever_.”

Jaime can’t help smiling at her chiding tone. He wants to make a joke, but all he can think of is how _warm_ her hands are, and all roads in that direction are perilous. Anyway, he does not want to distract her from her task, not when she has moved on to carefully brushing the frost from his beard and his hair.

“What are you doing here?” she asks more quietly. “Where are your soldiers? Why are you alone?”

He sinks into her blue eyes for a time before he tries to answer, distracted by her fingers in his hair. When she withdraws them, he speaks up hoarsely.

“Came to warn you. Tell the Starks. Cersei will not send the army.” He catches his breath and lets an especially painful bout of shivering subside. “She wants to let the North die.”

“But—“ Brienne is hesitant. He can’t tell why, and it bothers him.

“She lied. At the Dragonpit, she lied.” There is so much more to tell. It’s all so heavy on his tongue, and he is so tired. “Tell them. She sent Euron to bring the Golden Company. Attack you from the South. Tell the Starks… and Tyrion… Cersei betrayed you all.”

Brienne looks away from him, anger and disbelief plain on her face. “Why?”

He can’t explain that. It’s beyond him. He closes his eyes against the look on her face, despair flooding back in like the tides. “I’ve failed you.”

She touches his hair again, lightly. “You came.”

Still. “Tell them,” he repeats. “Right away.”

“I will,” Brienne promises, “but first drink this.”

She helps him sit up, her arms as firm and solid as a stone wall behind him. It’s not enough to hold him still, and he spills some of the hot liquid trying to hold the cup steady with his shaking hand. She has to take it from him and bring it to his lips, while bracing him against her body.

The drink is sweet and hot and he can feel it all the way down every time he manages to swallow. It warms him from the inside the way her hands warm his skin, gently stilling the shuddering. She holds him there until he can force all of it down, waiting patiently for him to catch his breath between attempts.

When he lies back she is piling furs over him, saying something about how he will have to learn to protect himself from the cold, as she has. They are both Southerners, the frigid North is a children’s story to them, but it will kill them faster than the army of the dead if they are careless. He had been foolish to set out alone without better clothes and more supplies, and leaving the road had been pure madness. Her voice is strange then, laden with emotion that he cannot recognize.

Jaime barely notices the contents of her speech. He is absorbed in the firelight turning Brienne’s pale skin gold, and touched by the concern on her face. He had forgotten what it was like to matter to someone. In a way, he is more grateful for it than anything. That, and her clear blue eyes looking down on him, warming him in their own way.

Before very long at all, exhaustion catches up with him, and with her voice lulling him he sinks again into sleep.

 

* * *

 

For a time, there is a Maester, a kindly fat man with an apologetic smile who keeps waking him up and making him drink something disgusting.

Jaime is unbearably cold now, colder even than he had been outside, though he understands dimly that he has merely stopped being numb to his condition. He contracts beneath a pile of furs in Brienne’s bed and reels with pain, of more than one kind. Muscles cramp and release without warning, protesting their overuse and damage from the cold. His skin burns in the places where it had been exposed to the freezing air.

Worse, memories assault him, and he is powerless to beat them back. All these things he had packed away where he would not think on them, just to keep himself functioning day to day. He had walled them up carefully so that only faint echoes could reach him. Now all of his walls have fallen, obliterated before he left King’s Landing, and there is no long walk to occupy his mind. He sees dragonfire and wildfire interchangeably, Myrcella dying in his arms, Tommen at the window of the King’s Tower, Lady Olenna getting in one last blow before the poison sets in, Joffrey choking, Tyrion in chains, his own hand rotting on a chain around his neck, his soldiers burning all around him, the smouldering remains of the Sept of Baylor, his lord father’s body with a crossbow bolt in his belly, Cersei accepting the slimy attentions of Euron Greyjoy, Cersei giving Clegane the order to kill him. So many terrible things he had been powerless to prevent.

The Maester leans over the bed in the narrow room and talks to him in gentle tones. He says to call him “just Sam” and speaks of exhaustion and exposure, of hunger, and of places on his skin that will be forever marked by the cold.

Jaime doesn’t respond. He wants badly to plead with him to bring Brienne back, but she is talking to the Starks and he knows that is more important. He’s done what he came for. He does not ask for her, but still his eyes scan the room hopefully every time he wakes. Seeing her, those few minutes with her, has been the only good thing that has happened to him in the last year.

She doesn’t come back. He sleeps.

 

* * *

 

“You know, you could have sent a raven.”

Tyrion. Pulling himself up into a chair he has dragged noisily into Jaime’s line of sight and settled opposite Brienne’s bed. He is smiling, but his eyes are grave.

“More dramatic this way,” Jaime says back. He should sit up, but his limbs still ache too much to move. His head is still very heavy, but the shivering has subsided. How long has he been sleeping? 

“It is indeed.” His little brother sits back, his feet dangling off the front of the seat, and contemplates him seriously. “What happened?”

He thinks about telling Tyrion to fuck off, still angry with him after everything. But he doesn’t. Instead he summarizes his message once again. “I was preparing the forces to march North, and our sister told me not to bother. She plans to let you all kill each other in the North and then finish you off with the Golden Company. Purchased with the gold I brought from Highgarden.” For a moment he sees dragonfire again, then his vision clears. “We argued. I walked out. Then I rode North.”

“This was weeks ago?”

“It took a little longer than I expected.” Jaime coughs, his chest aching.

Tyrion leans forward intently. “And that’s all that happened? You left?”

“Is that not enough?” he says wearily.

“Then you don’t know.” Tyrion bows his head. “I suppose it’s only right that I’m the one to tell you this, but I still wish it didn’t have to be me.”

Jaime hesitates a dread-filled moment. “Something happened after I left,” he whispers.

His little brother clasps his hands together suddenly and takes a deep breath, and Jaime _realizes_ a second before the words come.

“She’s dead, Jaime. Cersei is dead.”

The room telescopes; all at once everything is very far away.

Tyrion’s voice is strange; somber, but not sad. “We’re not sure when it happened, but we received word of it a week ago. From several sources. Undeniable.”

He didn’t know. How could he not know? He should have known the moment it happened.

His brother pauses every so often, perhaps to let the news sink in, and rubs at his thick beard. It doesn’t help. The words come to Jaime faintly as though through a long tunnel, and much of the detail will probably be lost to him later. “It looks like she suffered a miscarriage, but we suspect poison.” Pause. “Moon tea is possible, it can cause uncontrollable bleeding given late enough in pregnancy. Other poisons can have the same effect, though, including the poison that killed Joffrey.” Pause. “They found her in her bed, bled out, with the, uh… well, you don’t need the details.”

 _Baby. He means the baby,_ Jaime thinks.

Tyrion hesitates before continuing. “We’ve kept it quiet for the moment. News isn’t traveling well these days, and we want to avoid panic. Nobody quite knows what’s happened in King’s Landing, nor who sits on the Iron Throne now. We think it’s Euron Greyjoy, but no formal coronation has occurred. The Lannister forces withdrew some time ago, pulled back to the Riverlands. Where we thought you were, incidentally. There was some speculation here that you had assassinated the Queen. Which I may have encouraged. It would endear you more quickly to our northern friends than if you had merely fled. But of course I knew that you would never kill Cersei.”

But he did kill her. Or the child he put in her belly did.

“Are you sure?” he manages to ask faintly.

His little brother nods, his eyebrows pulling together. “Yes, Jaime. I’m sure.”

Maybe Euron gave her moon tea, to get rid of the child before he married her.

Or perhaps she took it herself, when he left.

“Jaime?” Even from very far away, his brother sounds concerned, maybe even a little frightened.

Jaime can’t worry about Tyrion now. He abandoned Cersei and she died. Just when he had finally broken free of her, she had left him far more definitively than he could ever have left her. As far as he has traveled, after everything he is pulled back to the beginning again, to Cersei.

Tyrion pushes out of the chair, stands beside his bed. “Jaime, you need to rest. You’ve been terribly ill. We’ll talk more when you are well.”

Could he ever be well again? Should he be? He had believed his entire life that they would die together. By all rights he should have frozen to death, sat down and died in the very moment that Cersei did. He shouldn’t have left King’s Landing at all, even if it meant the Mountain had murdered him. What had he been thinking?

Then his brother grasps his hand, tightly, with both of his. As if in answer to his thoughts, Tyrion speaks with sudden vehemence that makes Jaime focus finally on his face.

“You’re _my_ brother too,” he says. “I know you loved her, but don’t… don’t follow in her footsteps, please Jaime. You don’t have to go with her.”

Jaime shuts his eyes against him. Someone else he’s letting down.

“You’re too late, anyway. You’ve already outlived her. You may as well go on.”

That strikes him as funny, as reasons to live go.  He missed the moment. Might as well live. It’s not very persuasive, but very Tyrion.

Tyrion kisses his chapped knuckles and lets go. “Get some rest. We’ll speak again later.”

Jaime does not watch him go. He keeps his eyes shut and wills everything to stop: the firelight, the visitors, the hours dragging by, the sun and stars. Tyrion hesitates, as though he wants to say something else, but eventually the door closes behind him firmly.

Through the door, he hears Tyrion talking to someone. Now his little brother is using that voice he used to use with their father when he knew he was in trouble, and wanted to seem as though it didn’t bother him. Jaime isn’t trying to listen, but words come through the fog of shock anyway.

“… Better than I expected, if you can believe it.”

A low, chesty female voice answers. Brienne’s voice. She came back. She must have been arguing with his brother – her tones are sharp and clipped, and Tyrion raises his voice in return.

“I wasn’t going to wait until he’s hale and hearty and able to throw himself off something tall! Right now he’s not going anywhere, and that’s where I want him.”

Brienne again, her voice lowered, and then Tyrion hissing back. They both converse in undertones for several minutes, and Jaime stops trying to discern them. He just lets their presence sustain him in its small way.

Finally, Jaime can hear Brienne’s heavy boots echoing down the hall and Tyrion's lighter step as well. He can hear Tyrion's voice, sounding conciliatory. “They're more likely to listen to you than me. Tell them he came meaning to help, not looking for refuge – he didn’t know she was dead. He must have been long gone before the purges…”

The voices die away, leaving him behind. The last scrap of comfort he's been clinging to goes with them.

He lies awake for some time after that, reeling. His grief is too enormous to feel, it simply smothers him beneath it. Cersei is dead. The fact of it crushes him to where he cannot move or breathe. He can’t even go away inside; there is nowhere for him to go. Nowhere is safe. Everything he can think of reminds him of his twin. 

Even thinking of Brienne is no relief now - it feels like a betrayal. Of both of them, in a way. No matter what he does, he is forsaking one vow or the other.

When the fat maester returns, Jaime responds to none of his questions or his prodding. But he does accept dreamwine, forcing it down his parched throat in hasty gulps until the maester takes the goblet away.

 

* * *

 

_In his dreams Jaime is sinking in the river, his own armor dragging him down into the murky deep. Everything above him is fire and pain and tumult, but here there is blessed quiet. There is no reason to struggle, nothing more required of him. He can go limp and let his own weight drag him down and down and down. He can open his mouth and let the water come rushing in. There is no alarm in this, no panic or regret. It would be right for him to die here. It would be a relief._

_Still, when he turns his face up into the faint light where the water’s surface shimmers red with fire he can see the shape of a person there. At first he believes it’s Cersei, come to watch him drown. But it’s the wrong shape, doing the wrong things. This someone is reaching for him in the water, risking the destruction raining down all around, waiting for him to take her hand. Brienne. She has always been waiting for him. If he stretches out his arm, he might still reach her._

_Jaime hesitates, staring up through the cloudy waters._

_It’s too late; he’s waited too long. The gulf between them is too great, and growing larger every moment._

_Even if he does get to her, he is too heavy; he will drag her down into the river with him._

_So he sinks, his armor leaden around him, his metal hand an anchor, and he stares up at her. Lets a familiar and comfortable darkness envelop him, while she watches him sadly. He waits for her to give up and withdraw, and leave him there to drown.  He waits a long time._


	2. Burning Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wrestling with grief and regret, Jaime adjusts badly to the new realities of life at Winterfell, loses friends, and makes a new enemy.

Despite walking himself here, Jaime feels very much shipwrecked in the North. Somehow his life has broken fully apart in a storm and washed him up on the shores of Winterfell, empty-handed and utterly alone. That is the second surprise his brother has for him, a few days after the first. Brienne is gone.

While he is still recovering from his journey, sleeping the days away in this tiny windowless room deep within the dark halls of Winterfell, Brienne has ridden out with a force of wildlings to report to the King In The North, as people here refer to the doe-eyed Jon Snow. They are headed to the battlefront which now rages somewhere between Eastwatch and Karhold.  She never once returned to her quarters, where Jaime has run aground – unless she had tiptoed in as he slept, which he cannot imagine her doing. Sneaking around is not her style.

“There wasn’t time,” Tyrion has told him, trying to reassure. “It was a last-minute decision that the lady would lead them, and they left straight away. I’m sure she would have come if she could.”

Which is nonsense. Brienne would make time, if she really wanted to. To do the honorable thing, she would have made them all wait, joining them only when she completed her task and ignoring all glares and mutterings of irritation. He has seen her do that sort of thing more than once. But for so small a task as to bid him farewell, she could not find time? No. Jaime does not believe this for a moment.

Could she have simply forgotten him? Not when he lay in her quarters, in her own bed. This is a part of why he has not asked for another one, reasoning she would have to come back sooner or later. But she has not reappeared after that first night. He has only a dim memory of her putting him to bed when he arrived delirious at Winterfell, and then nothing. Now she has abandoned him there, with no indication of when or if she would return.

He cannot stop picturing her face when she had confronted him at the Dragonpit, with her vivid expression of outrage. If only he had been able to speak with her alone that day. He might have been able to make her understand. Then again, he remembers trailing behind Cersei in a fog of misery and never speaking his mind, and he thinks that probably Brienne had understood him after all, and had simply been disappointed.  His gut tells him, with a sinking certainty, the warrior maid is unhappy with him still.

Jaime wonders what she might have told Tyrion about it. He has already heard them whispering together, and Tyrion admitted to seeing her off with the Wildling forces. This much he does not mind. There is something comforting in the thought of his little brother and the Maid of Tarth striking up a friendship. He had often thought they would have much in common. And if Brienne would find his brother a little scandalous and Tyrion find her a little humorless, he thought they might have a good effect on one another, or at least might look after each other, which would be in many ways a relief. Still, the two of them conspiring right now makes Jaime nervous. Gods only know what Tyrion has told her.

Jaime simply does not know if he can trust his brother, and he hates to feel that way. Tyrion the traitor. His brother at least comes to see him, stokes the fire and sits with him. When he looks on Tyrion, it is so hard to remember the terrible things he has done. He looks just the same as the brother he loved, scarred but familiar. He talks the same clever circles around matters of import and tries to distract him from his sorrows. Yet he is also the Hand to the Mad King’s daughter the Dragon Queen, and that Tyrion is a stranger to him as well as an enemy.

There are things Tyrion plainly does not want to discuss with him. He speaks of nothing serious, and reveals little of his own situation. Jaime does not understand his place here at Winterfell. Is he still married to Sansa or not? That would make him Lord of Winterfell, and he does not seem to be that. Still Hand to the Dragon Queen? The Dragon Queen is not here, or at least Jaime has not heard her dragons nearby. But each time he asks of it Tyrion makes a joke, or brushes it off in some other way that tells him nothing. At times it seems as if he simply doesn’t know how to answer. At other times, he is plainly stonewalling him.

Tyrion’s interest in his recovery might be only to his own benefit. Cersei, if she were here, and he could hear her as clearly as if she sat besides him, would say that their misshapen brother will use Jaime in whatever way he can: to improve his position with the Starks, to further endear himself to his Queen. After all, Tyrion could testify to every crime one might accuse him of, from the incestuous affair to the murder of Aerys Targaryen. If it is his turn to be put on trial, Tyrion could as easily tie a noose around his neck as loosen it.

He hates to think of him like this. But Tyrion has shown him little enough concern in the last year. Jaime does not trust it now.

Between visits from his brother, he mainly sleeps. There is no coughing or shaking now, and the pain has receded. There is only dull, awful despair, a deep weariness that afflicts his whole being, and no desire whatsoever to do anything but sleep. He often wakes with tears on his face, and then he remembers why and it’s a hammerblow to his skull. Cersei is dead. He is un-twinned, his other half is buried in the ground. Like Father, like the children, even Uncle Kevan and Cousin Lancel. All of them dead now, and him alive. He and Tyrion are the only Lannisters left, and Tyrion is a stranger to him, the Hand of the Dragon Queen. He is far from home, alone in the frozen North.  He cannot call anywhere home now. Casterly Rock belongs to the Unsullied army of the Targaryens, and King’s Landing is lost.

His grief is still crushing, and it encompasses everything that has happened in a great unbearable mass. He can tear his thoughts away from it only at intervals, and then only to consider his more immediate troubles. What Brienne must think of him, what Tyrion could be planning, what in the world he will do now. These other matters he must contemplate are hardly more pleasant.

Still his strength gradually returns to him, enough to resist drinking the bitter medicine the fat Maester brings. The Maester, Sam, is relentlessly upbeat, and no amount of ignoring or glaring seems to cut through his mood. Sam-Just-Sam remarks on his recovery encouragingly, seeming quite pointedly not to notice the slowness of it. He makes inane commentary on the weather despite that there are clearly only two flavors of weather in the North, snowing and not-snowing, and both are bitterly cold. He discusses war and politics not at all, and any questions on either produce a cheerful barrage of shrugging.

How anyone can smile in this cheerless grey place is beyond imagining. Even the food is bland and colorless and Jaime is only too happy to pass off whatever gruel is brought him for Sam to finish.

“I suppose you must be used to very fine food, from King’s Landing,” Sam says, hesitating over his bowl before taking it away. “After the Night’s Watch I’m happy to have something hot to eat, and enough of it. Before the winter’s over, we’ll all be lucky to have that.”

You seem to have gotten more than enough, Jaime thinks, and rolls over to go back to sleep.

He knows just what Cersei would have had to say about all of this. She detested sickness of all kinds, and called all forms of convalescence laziness. In the end that would be what gets him out of bed, the endless nagging hatred of weakness that takes the form of his sister’s mocking voice.

_Are you just going to lie there and waste away? Get up, fool._

He doesn’t have to imagine those words, so deeply is she embedded in his soul. He can simply hear them, like a whisper just behind his ear. They spent their entire lives together, she was his twin. He knows her voice as well as his own. Now, knowing he will never hear it again, his mind conjures her up easily. If there is such a thing as a haunting, this is how she would haunt him.

 _First you must be rid of this fat idiot Sam,_ Cersei would advise. _He has no chain; he is no Maester. The Starks would spare no real Maester for the likes of you. For the lion of Lannister they send a fool too useless for even the Night’s Watch. This is an insult!_

Or, he would have answered her, they could have dumped me in the snow and left me to die. Much as you would have done, to our own enemies.

Sam, for all his endless prattle and irritating earnestness, has at least been sincere in his efforts to make him well. Maester or no, he has been both effective and kind. Anyway, with that kicked-puppy expression of his he would probably absorb any abuse sent his way with no impact to his disposition. It would not dissuade him from bringing food and medicine, and Jaime finds it difficult to hate someone so perfectly prepared to be disliked.

_You were always too easy on these outcasts. You and your sympathy for underdogs.  Lannisters only love winners! No wonder you wound up on the losing side._

A loser, but still living, he answers silently. All the so-called victors are dead.

Finally, sick of arguing with himself, Jaime finally makes himself rise and dress, even more slowly than usual with his single hand. He has been tottering around the room at intervals, in the last few days, muscles screaming at him for their weeks of abuse on the road. The tasteless food has slowly restored his energy, and he is ready for a lengthier walk. If he hadn’t berated himself out of bed surely boredom would have driven him to it soon. He is tired of looking at these four walls.

His face is still gaunt and colorless in the tiny mirror Tyrion had provided. He runs a hand over his beard curiously. It feels shaggy and has a good deal more grey than he would like. His estimation that he would resemble a wight coming in from the cold had proven correct. He looks like a corpse, and feels like one too. This reminds him of Cersei, and he shudders and puts the mirror away.

He pulls his traveling cape over the plain homespun clothes that had been brought for him. Then he goes out into the corridor, and walks the darkened halls of Winterfell.

Jaime has seen no sign of the Starks since he arrived. Nor anyone else of import. He passes the furry Northmen and they give him only glances. He wonders if they do not recognize him, or simply do not care.

There do appear to be more guards in his wing of the keep than in the others, and when he walks onto the balcony that overlooks the courtyard he can feel eyes on him. He is not completely unnoticed, it seems.

While he may not have expected a hero’s welcome in the North he did expect some kind of reaction, but so far there has been nothing. There is no attention from the Starks whatsoever, no interest from the makeshift war council that occupies his brother’s time, nor even outrage from the Northmen at his presence. They are all enveloped in their own concerns. Perhaps because he has more or less crept into the keep under their noses? It is probably too late to make any event of his joining them there.

Jaime looks out over the crowded courtyard, which though bustling with activity reminds him of nothing more than a graveyard. Grey, grey, grey, everything is grey. From the frost-encrusted earth to the stones of the keep to the clouded sky above – even the people are grey and dreary. Grey and brown, Stark colors, from the clothes and furs to the tents and banners. The steely Northmen trade their meagre belongings in a kind of makeshift market, and gather in improvised shelters to share food and drink. Their movements blend together into a kind of dismal sea. Colors inspired by anything other than mud and rock are only a distant rumor to this place. Jaime imagines any more vibrant hues slowly leeching from travelers’ clothing as they ride north of The Neck, until everything is flinty and colorless. If he stays here long, he will be grey too.

They could still turn him out into the cold, he reminds himself, looking bleakly at the huddled refugees piled into corners and crawling under thin blankets. If they barred him from Winterfell, where would he go? No Northern hold would take him. Even if he somehow made it out of the North, rode back to the South, he has nowhere to call home now. He has given up Casterly Rock and there is no going back to King’s Landing.

He's not sure whether the Starks would allow him to recover from the journey just so they can make a point of killing him, whether at the block or via exile. This seems more and more unlikely; they would surely have arrested him by now if they were going to. Somehow he has become insignificant. Either by the loss of his sword hand, or the diminishment of his house, his presence here is apparently of no importance to anyone. Had the Queen not perished, his news might have been more urgent – he might have had knowledge that would have been valuable. But with Cersei dead, even that connection no longer matters.

His personal significance had been little enough as a Kingsguard, true. But even then he had been a Lannister, and a Kingslayer, much as he had hated it. And he had served a legitimate King. This is altogether different and more troubling.

Cersei-in-his-mind speaks up again, much more plainly. _You are surrounded by enemies, in this terrible freezing North, with no way to escape. Whatever possessed you to come here? So eager to betray me you thought nothing of the consequences. You ARE the stupidest Lannister._

He imagines even Tyrion is becoming frustrated with him. His brother urges him to recover more quickly. He has his own motives, of course: he wants his help in the coming war. Jaime is hesitant to give it. Helping Tyrion is helping the Dragon Queen, and that he does not want to do. But hadn’t he agreed to it, in joining the fight against the White Walkers?

Anyway, he isn’t sure what help he has to give. Whatever he had been in King’s Landing, here he is no one. If they recognized him it would be worse, as it had been on the roads in the North. If he had been able to bring the Lannister forces, maybe retrieve a garrison from the Riverlands, he might have been able to contribute something. But he had left, and Cersei died, and the Lannister forces are out of reach, perhaps disbanded. Now he is no use to anyone. He should never have come here.

His dark thoughts are interrupted by a clearing throat behind him, and he turns to find Sansa Stark joining him at the balcony in her long fur cloak, her pale hands alighting on the wooden railing gracefully.

When last he saw Sansa she was a frightened young girl in the capital. Now she is a woman grown, and looks so like her mother, with her fiery red hair and imperious air, it nearly knocks him back in surprise. She is the first thing in Winterfell that isn’t dull and grey; her siblings may be Starks to the bone, but this one is pure Tully. He expects her to fly at him with her fists, just to keep tradition alive.

She seems unsure what to make of him as well. Keeps her distance, but addresses him courteously. “I hope you are recovering from your difficult journey, My Lord.”

He thanks her for her hospitality with the same cautious courtesy, eyeing her escort. She has another bodyguard serving in Brienne’s place, keeping to a shadowed corridor nearby where he cannot quite see their face. Small but wary and muscles tensed to lunge with the mildest provocation. A closer look suggests that this bodyguard is also a girl.

“My condolences for your loss,” Lady Sansa notes, her demeanor growing noticeably icier.

Jaime shrugs off the nicety and turns back to the courtyard. “No need for that. You aren’t a bit sorry, and we both know it. I won’t make you pretend.”

“The Queen,” Lady Sansa says, “once told me that courtesy is a woman’s weapon. That, and her beauty.”

“I’m sure she was much ruder than that. But far be it from me to deny you your weapon of choice.” Jaime doesn’t particularly want to discuss Cersei with Starks, and quickly changes the subject. “So, Lady Stark, am I to be a guest or a prisoner?”  

“I would have said neither,” the Lady’s shadow says from the passageway behind them. “My vote was to throw you back in the snow.”

Jaime tries to get a good look at her, looking over his shoulder to stare hard at her shadowed profile. He cannot escape the thought that he must know her from somewhere.

Lady Sansa quiets her attendant. “Lord Tyrion explained to us the purpose of your journey, and that you offer your… services. It was my decision that you should be allowed at least to recover and take shelter.  For the moment, you will remain here. Under supervision.”

“That sounds very much like a prisoner.”

“It is partly for your own safety. And you will not be locked in.” Lady Sansa’s eyes go diamond-hard suddenly, and her voice sharpens. “I was a guest of your house for some years, Lord Lannister. You’ll find we Starks treat prisoners less cruelly.”

Jaime gives her an empty smile. “I’ll dispute that. I was a Stark prisoner for over a year. They kept me in a dog’s cage, in the mud. Your accommodations in King’s Landing were far nicer, though I’ll grant the company wasn’t.”

The Lady’s bodyguard cackles suddenly, and Jaime finds her much younger than he had originally thought. He turns to look at her, and suddenly realization strikes. “Is that Arya? Did Brienne find her after all? Seven hells, you haven’t grown at all since last I saw you, have you been cursed?”

The girl steps into the light, and Jaime sees that the younger Stark favors her father as much as Sansa resembles her mother. _Ned and Cat again, I’ll never be rid of them._ She is fiddling with a knife, with alarming dexterity. Though she has not grown very much taller, her expression is unmistakably adult, something feral and hungry. Wherever she has been the last few years, she has come back changed.

As had they all. For a moment Jamie sees with remarkable clarity the Stark children as they had been when he came to Winterfell with Cersei and Robert. Healthy, clear-eyed, heartbreakingly young. They were of an age with Marcella and Tommen, had played and gossiped with them while Jaime absented himself and looked for an opportunity to be alone with Cersei. He had not stayed for the feast, which had turned out to be the last happy moment for so many. All of Winterfell is now shadowed with those dead, Ned and Cat, Robert, Joffrey, and dozens more. Even those still living have left behind ghosts, shades of who they had been before the wars.

These girls are no longer children, certainly not the ones they were. Now they are something else, and so is he.

Casting off the memory, he speaks with unexpected sincerity. “I swore an oath to your mother I would see you both alive to Winterfell. I don’t think she expected me to keep it. But I’m glad to see it done.”

“Brienne saw it done,” Sansa Stark says shortly, and again he is reminded of her mother. “But she told us of your aid and your promise. That is why you may shelter here.”

“I didn’t come for shelter.” Jaime leans his back against the railing and addresses both girls. “I intended to bring forces, but lacking that I have brought myself. An experienced commander, which I’m certain you have need of. I have fought in more wars than any of you have seen. I will lead your troops against the army of the dead.”

The younger sister actually laughs. “Do you think the North is going to follow a Lannister? They’d sooner follow the Others.”

He is equally dismissive in return. “That's exactly what’s going to happen, the way things are going now. Those refugees pouring in now are only the beginning. If the Northern holds are already evacuating things must be grim indeed. I’ve seen the banners in your courtyard; plenty of them come some distance from the wall. They don’t seem so confident that your forces will fend off the dead. Those holds are about to be obliterated by the enemy, if they haven’t been already.”

The Stark sisters exchange a look. He must have guessed rightly.

“When our factions met at the Dragonpit we set aside our houses and grudges to band together. Your brother Jon asked for our help, and we agreed to give it. Cersei may have broken that promise, but I have not. I intend to fight those creatures. It doesn’t matter who sits the Iron Throne if we’re all dead.”

Arya and Sansa both look skeptical at this sentiment. 

Jaime grits his teeth. He knows they are reluctant to trust him, but he must convince them somehow. “I know our houses have long been at war, but we must put it behind us. I’m not my father or my sister. I don’t care about Starks and Lannisters. We don’t have to like each other. This is about survival.”

“Of course you don’t have to care about such things, your house is gone,” Sansa interrupts smoothly. “And we have to look after ours.” She puts up a hand to his angry expression. “Yes, I do understand that we must work together. Ultimately it is not for me to decide. As Lady of Winterfell I can allow you to stay, but I do not command the armies. How you will serve, if you will serve, it will be for our brothers to decide.”

Brothers? Jaime raises his eyebrows. “Lord Snow seems rather busy at the moment. Were you going to send for him?”

“No need for that. A message is on its way to him with the details. And Bran is already here at Winterfell.”

He stops, surprised. Brandon Stark is alive? And here at Winterfell? That is… going to complicate things.

Rethinking, he tries another tactic. “Ravens are unreliable in the winter, and especially in the middle of a war. While you confer over this you are losing ground to the White Walkers. This is an invasion. Where are your forces arranged? Where is Daenerys and her Dothraki horde, and the dragons? I could–“

“We are not conferring with you behind our brother’s back,” Sansa answers him, and earns a grin from her little sister. “You will have to wait your turn.”

“There isn’t time for this! Send me to the front,” he insists stubbornly. “I will fight with a blade in my hand if nothing else. Send me as a soldier, let me earn my place.”

“We’ve only just sent reinforcements, wildling warriors fresh to the fighting. The rest will guard Winterfell. And no, we have no need for your sword here either, thank you.”

“You must have a huge surplus of experienced fighters, if you can turn one away at the beginning of a war.” Jaime stretches his left hand out over the courtyard. “All I see here are starving men and green boys. Where are you hiding these warriors, I wonder?”

Sansa looks troubled; he might persuade her with cold logic eventually. For today, her distrust of him is too strong to bend. “Not all our forces come from Winterfell, and our battle plans are not your concern.”

“Those starving men and green boys at least have two hands each, Kingslayer,” little Arya speaks up harshly. “And we have Jon to command. We don’t need you.”

Jaime can’t help rolling his eyes at this last. “How many battles has he won? How many wars has he fought? However many, he was never trained to command armies or assemble battle strategies. I was.”

“Robb beat you easily enough,” Arya points out spitefully.

He knows he shouldn’t let himself be baited. He says it anyway. “And where did that get him?”

Both sisters move with startling speed – Arya flipping her dagger into a position of attack, and Sansa to stretch out an arm between them.

“No, Arya,” she says, and an unspoken conversation passes between them that Jaime has no interest in.

He shakes his head. “To think, all that stands between us and the end of the world is Ned Stark’s children.  Bad enough Lord Righteousness can’t keep his mouth shut long enough to forge a peace between two mad queens, his sisters turn away help out of pride. If Westeros is in your hands, we’re fucked.”

Before he passes into the corridor and leaves them behind, Jaime gets enough of a glimpse of Arya’s face as he turns to know he has made yet another enemy.

He goes back to Brienne’s room. Where else can he go? There is a kind of dull fury grinding in his gut. Winterfell, the North, and stupid, stupid Starks. Could he not just have an enemy he could fight? A true, honest fight with his life or theirs on the end of it. This is what he was born for, what he urgently needs to boil this poison from his blood. Give him one of those dead creatures to kill, at least. Give him a good death, if nothing else. Fucking Starks. He would have fought for them if they’d allowed it. More fool him.

Jaime stews for hours, pacing the room until he is exhausted and then lying on the bed glaring at the ceiling. The people he is really angry with are out of his reach. Most of them are dead, and he cannot be angry with the dead. You might as well be angry at the weather, for all the good it does.

He can’t be angry with Cersei. He’s never quite managed that. He’s been frustrated with her at times, but mostly he swallows down such things and lets it burn him all the way through. When he left King’s Landing, then he had been angry, for perhaps the first time. Now she is dead, and all this anger has nowhere left to go.

He remembers a night on the road to Winterfell, when he could still pay for a bed and had not yet abandoned roads and villages, where he had lain in a narrow bed and stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling and thought about what would happen next. Cersei had been dead then too, but he hadn’t known it yet. That had been back when he still thought that they might exist as separate beings in the world, that such a thing was possible.

Leaving King’s Landing was the easy part. Not turning back was harder. He could lie to himself then and say it was only for the war, that when all this madness was over he might somehow return. But every league away from the capital made it more final, and he knew with more and more certainty that this was a betrayal his twin would not forgive. It divided him in half, this knowledge. Half of him wanted to turn around and beg Cersei to take him back. The other urged his horse to ride faster.

Even when he wanted to take it back, it was more muscle memory than a true desire. He knew this was right, that she was killing him and he was letting her. Their last fight only made it explicit that the choice was to live alone or die with Cersei, and he wanted after all to live. However hard it was, however it violated every instinct he had cultivated over decades of his life, he meant to be gone for good.

That night, lying awake in the dark, he had thought about their unborn child and what might become of it. There was little enough he could do in King’s Landing for a child if Cersei would not listen to him, if she was always going to marry Euron. She was never going to let him be a father to that child. How long, he wondered, would he have allowed himself to be strung along with that promise? But he had let Cersei promise him many things over the years, and as easily forgotten them when she did not deliver.

The child would be doomed along with the rest of them, if the war in the North did not fare well. It was good that he had left. It might have been better to leave sooner.

It was too hard to think on. It was twenty years of what may have been a long mistake. Too enormous to contemplate. And hadn’t he always been talented at avoiding thoughts too painful to entertain? He did not have to sort it out now, at any rate. The important thing was to go North, to add his aid to the war against the dead, and sort through the ruins of his life later. In that moment he was simply free.

Now, Jaime wishes he had tried to sort through it back there, before he knew that it would be too late. Death changed everything; it made his journey north less of an escape and more of a betrayal. Now there would never be a reckoning between he and Cersei, and he would always be to blame for abandoning her to her fate.

Father had been right after all; he is weak. He could not face the truth until they were all gone, Cersei and the children and the whole rest of their house. All that he had striven and sacrificed so much for has crumbled and he is left with the consequences. Now everything he has ever done has been undone, and all his adult life has amounted to nothing.

And, if his confrontation with the Stark sisters is any indication, he is not going to be given the opportunity to fix it.

It is Tyrion’s misfortune to arrive just as Jaime needs someone to be angry with. Worse that he arrives in his own temper. He bangs open the door and starts on him without ceremony.

“Must you pick fights with our hosts? I thought you had some sense left!” He has always had a voice completely disproportionate to his size; Jaime could have heard him from the courtyard. “What were you doing?”

“What I came to do,” he says mildly to the ceiling, despite his festering mood. “Offer my services in the war, offer to plan, to fight. Apparently, they aren’t interested.”

“You should have let me handle that.” Tyrion puts his hands to his temples and rubs vigorously. “This sets us back days, if not weeks. I’ve been trying to negotiate this situation politely.”

“And I am supposed to wait around and do nothing while the rest of you determine my fate?”

“You’re lucky to get that much. You don’t seem to understand – these Northerners would be only too happy to take your head in revenge for Ned Stark’s!”

“They can wait their turn,” Jaime sighs and sits up. “I think your Targaryen has the first claim. Is that the way of it now, it’s my turn to have the blame for Ned Stark’s death? I may have captured him, but I wasn’t a part of his execution. I would have opposed it, had I actually been there.”

“That’s a small distinction as far as they’re concerned,” Tyrion says. He appears to be taking their side. “Even if you didn’t swing the sword, you were at the center of it all. After all—“

The dwarf hesitates; unfortunately Jaime is in no mood to let him be oblique. “Go on,” he prods, and sits across from him at the small table besides the fire. “I’m curious. Tell me how I’m to blame for all the ills of the world.”

“If not for your affair with Cersei, there would be nothing to hide, and Ned would not have died. Is what _they_ would say,” he specifies hastily.

Oh, _them_. Jaime is familiar with this nameless them, the sort of people who smiled to his face and called him Kingslayer behind his back. What bothers him more is hearing Tyrion taking their side. “How was it their business? How is it anyone’s business? It was between us.”

Perhaps Tyrion has been stewing as well. He comes back with his reply so easily; he has plainly been thinking it for some time.

“The two of you, and Robert, and the entire kingdom. With the legacy of the throne at stake. The legitimacy of Robert’s heirs is very much everyone’s business, when it brings the realm to war. If the two of you hadn’t killed Robert—”

“I had no part of that!” Jaime interrupts. “Cersei colluded with Lancel to have Robert killed, again, I wasn’t even there. We always spoke of waiting for Robert to simply die, he was not a healthy man. You didn’t see him after he drank. It could not have been more than a few years before his guts burst all on their own.”

Tyrion is not ready to let this go. He has Jaime’s full attention for the first time since all of this happened, and he has been swallowing anger of his own.

“That’s what you always say: it wasn’t me, I wasn’t there. You didn’t mastermind the Red Wedding, you didn’t kill all the Starks or set the Mountain loose on the countryside. You can’t absolve yourself of everything because you didn’t personally do it. You _stayed_. You supported Father, you commanded his troops, how can you claim to be innocent of his crimes? You kept Cersei on the throne! Even after she murdered our own uncle, cousin Lancel, and your own son!”

“What else could I have done?!” Agitated, he slams down his golden hand against the table, making Tyrion jump at the sudden sharp sound. “Tell me what I should have done, Tyrion. Tell me there was some way to be true to my own blood kin and keep my vows and protect the realm all at once. Because I _tried_ to do it, little brother. I tried to keep everyone alive and find a way to make them listen. I even did their dirty work myself so that there would be mercy in it. I negotiated, I let people go, I took the underhanded victory if more lives would be spared. Do you think I wanted to give up Casterly Rock? But it was better to take Highgarden in a sweep than siege at the Rock for weeks and lose half of our men. I undermined the family’s wishes more than even you know. I ended the siege at Riverrun without wiping out the Tullys, and you have no idea how ridiculously difficult that was.  More work than it was worth. And what did I find when I came back to King’s Landing after all that? The Sept at Baylor destroyed and my son dead. What should I have done then? Tell me, I want to know. Tell me what would have saved them all, because I keep running through it all in my mind and I can’t find the answer.”

Jaime’s voice breaks at this last. He had tried so hard, and for so long, to keep the family intact. Perhaps it had been foolish to believe he could hold a house together with his bare hands when they had all hated each other for all of his life, but he had believed it. And he had failed so dreadfully that their house would almost certainly never recover.

The room is quiet a moment after this speech.

“I don’t know,” Tyrion finally says. “But I suppose that’s the difference between us. I think this house needed to fall.”

Jaime glares. “You certainly did your best to make it happen.”

“Are we going to argue that again? I’m not going to be sorry for what I did. Father tortured me my entire life. You don’t know what it was like—”

“I do know. I was there.” Jaime remembers better than Tyrion thinks, and had tried to intervene more often than he knows. “And it was not so easy to be the favored son as you might think.”

“You don’t. You cannot imagine. You,” Tyrion points for emphasis, “the golden boy, effortlessly talented and handsome and loved by all of our family, you cannot possibly understand how it was to be me. How they all hated me, Jaime. They wanted me never to have been born, and however hard I tried, I could never get Father to stop wishing I was dead. I think I should be rewarded for waiting until he was actively trying to kill me to fight back.”

Jaime knows this part. He understands why Tyrion did it. That was never the problem. “Forget Father, you betrayed _me_.”

Tyrion looks startled, as though the possibility never occurred to him. This infuriates Jaime even further. How is it that he must explain himself over and over, to people who never want to understand?

He tries anyway, growing louder all the time. “I defied our House, our entire Kingdom, to set you free. After a fair trial and a trial by combat, both of which you lost, and when by most accounts you almost certainly killed Joffrey, still I set you free in defiance of the law and The Seven themselves, and what did you do? You couldn’t just take your freedom and live your life quietly? No, you had to murder the head of our house and leave me to answer for what you did.  Cersei never once looked at me the same after that, do you know? I betrayed her for you. That’s where it all started going wrong.”

Tyrion hardens in response. “I'd say that was wrong enough to begin with.”

Jaime goes on as if he had not heard him. "And what do you do when you leave Westeros? Join the enemies of your house and bring them here to wage war on me.”

He is surprised at himself for this. He hadn’t known, until he found himself saying it, how much it had hurt him to find his brother on the other side of the battlefield.

“Oh yes, this entire war is aimed at you personally, I admit it. Because the entire history of Westeros revolves around you.” Tyrion is openly angry now, his thin sarcasm not quite stretching to cover his words. “Yes, I joined Daenerys Targaryen, but I didn’t convince her to come here. She was already on her way. And she treated me with more respect than this family ever did. Of course I supported her, gave her council.”

“Did you counsel her to destroy us outside Highgarden?” Jaime accuses. “Was it your counsel that burned us all? Your countrymen. Your bannermen.”

“They were never mine!” Tyrion shouts back at him. “Those same people would have seen me dead in the cradle! And whatever you may think, I didn’t enjoy it. I was there too, you know. I watched it happen. I know how terrible it was!”

“No! You don’t!” Jaime finds himself shouting. Surely all of Winterfell could hear them now, but he does not care. “Those men were my responsibility, and I watched them die. Some of them no more than boys. I watched their faces boiling beneath their helmets. I see it every time I sleep. Do you? Do you know how a man smells when he burns, what it sounds like?”

Tyrion hesitates at that, because he does know. But under very different circumstances, on the other end of the fire.

“I watched Aerys do the same when I was no more than a boy myself. I’ve lived with those memories for over twenty years. You know this, and still you sought out Aerys’s daughter and brought her here. So she could do the same to the rest of your family. So you could bring my very worst nightmares back to life. Do you hate me that much, brother?”

Tyrion looks almost panicked. They have never in all their lives argued like this before. The rest of the family had been constantly at war, but Jaime and Tyrion had been solid allies all along. Sometimes the only allies either of them had.

The dwarf’s face is a mask of pain. “I don’t hate you at all. You just don’t understand –“

“What you’ve been through? Of course, that’s all that matters. I certainly don’t matter to you. My word means so little to you that you can ignore everything I told you about the Mad King, everything I saw and heard, and help the Targaryens take back Westeros. All so you can have your revenge and get a little bit of power for yourself.”

“That’s not why—“

“For that you can casually watch while I go to my death. Maybe feel a little sorry for yourself afterwards. But it’s all justified, because our Father was a monster, and fuck me for saving your miserable life.”

“That’s not fair—“

“Never mind Father, what about that woman you strangled to death why? Because she betrayed you?” Jamie can’t stop himself now, the words kept on coming. Things he hadn’t even realized he thought. “No, you would have gone to her quarters for that, and you went straight to the Tower of the Hand. You killed her because you were angry with Father, and she was in his bed. Did she deserve to die for that? For your pain? What about Myrcella, who was utterly innocent? Myrcella who loved you? You sent her to our enemies in Dorne to be clever, for another round of your lifelong war with Cersei, so she could die horribly and painfully. Right there in my arms. Was that for your pain? No— Myrcella died so you could _win_.”

Now it is Tyrion’s turn to slam his fist on the table angrily. “I had no choice! You weren’t there! I had nobody on my side! I had to be clever to survive!”

“As if it would have been any different had I been there. I couldn’t get you to listen any more than I ever could Cersei. All our lives I’ve tried to keep you from each other’s throats, and it was pointless. You’re the just the same, you and her. All your vengeance and power-hunger and selfishness. You should have been her twin, not me.”

“What, so I could fuck her like you?” Tyrion snapped cruelly.

 _Yes_ , Cersei whispers to him. _It was like that. He was always jealous of you. The favored son, the brother I loved._

“No,” Jaime concedes, surprising them both by taking the charge seriously. He does not believe that. Tyrion is not so loathsome as him. Suddenly he regrets all of this, the entire argument. These were things better left unsaid.

Tyrion stays on the offensive. “Your affair with Cersei started this entire mess. Your mindless loyalty to her allowed all of this to happen. If father was a monster, Cersei was a beast. And she would never have gotten all the way to the Iron Throne without you there guarding her back. There’s a whole lot of blood on your hands, brother. Much more than just my two.”

Jaime doesn’t want to do this anymore. He has no defenses left, and he is more wounded by Tyrion’s words than he wants to realize. “I left her. What more do you want from me?”

“Did you really leave her? Or were you forced out? Come on, Jaime. This sudden attack of conscience isn’t fooling anyone. Did she finally tire of you? Throw you out on your ear? Or just sic the Mountain on you? We both know that if she hadn’t threatened your life you would never have left. You’d still be there now, groveling at her dead feet!”

Jaime is a little surprised by the blind rage when it comes, that it comes here, and at all. His face grows hot in a matter of seconds, and he finds himself on his feet before even thinking of rising.

“Get out,” he says, shaking. “Get out before I do something I’ll regret.”

“Jaime—“

“Go to hell. Or I’ll send you there myself.”

“Which one?” Tyrion seems to realize he has gone too far, and as usual tries to deflect with humor. He holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture as he climbs out of his chair. “Take it easy, brother, I’m just trying to follow instructions. Wouldn’t want to get lost on the way.”

He is good at that, trying to make you smile when you are angry with him, but this trick does not work with Jaime. Perhaps because he has never been so angry with him before.

Finally all his grief and disappointment has found its way into rage, but releasing it is not a relief. It just hurts. Everything hurts. Jaime closes his eyes to it all and draws into himself tightly, standing so stiffly he seems ready to break in two.

“You, Cersei, father. All my life I have bled for this family and not one of you would have done the same for me. Not one of you. Get out. Go to your Mother of Dragons and get the power you’ve always wanted. Take Casterly Rock and King’s Landing and the Starks and everything else you can get your greedy hands on and choke on it.”

Now Tyrion looks very sincerely worried, backing away slowly. “Look, you’re going to need someone talking to the Starks for you, and your only other friend is gone.”

Jaime advances on him. Normally out of courtesy to his brother he remains seated, even settling on the floor to look him in the eye. But now he towers over Tyrion and clenches his single fist at his side, seething, and it is less of a threat than a promise.

“I won’t ask again. Get out and don’t come back.”

At first he looks as though Tyrion might actually might cry. If Jaime had been even a little bit less furious, he would have been inclined to comfort him, as he had when they were small. But he stays angry, and Tyrion does not break.

Instead he reassembles his expression into a sneer and slams the door on his way out, and it is Jaime who collapses into a chair and lets the tears come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Brienne will be back soon. I feel the need to do some character work with Jaime before I put them in the same room again. And Jaime has to have a talk with Bran first. 
> 
> Apologies if this chapter is a little weak or I missed some errors. I didn't have a beta reader this time. I could use a new beta reader for this story - if anyone is interested please PM me.


	3. The Flayed Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime Lannister is not learning to like Winterfell, even before the Starks summon him to the godswood to face off with Three-Eyed Raven Bran. But at least Jaime finally makes a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many many thanks to honorata and especially tupelosong for their help with this chapter!

Winterfell is no place for a man with a thoroughly broken heart.  

Unforgiving in the best of times, in these years of war and winter it offers no solace for a grieving stranger from the South. Jaime Lannister can't find it anything but ugly. There must be beauty in the spare landscape, these harsh gray stones, for those who call it home. But he cannot see it. These walls may grow more familiar over time, but it will never be a home for him. He will never be used to the cold, it shocks him as much the hundredth day as it had the first. The North is unbearable; sunless and soggy and uncomfortable, and he is miserable in it. If Jaime had absolutely anywhere else to go, he would have left long ago. He probably should have anyway.

Jaime keeps to himself here. He has nothing in common with these Northerners. He avoids their conversation and their company;  their noisy camaraderie doesn’t tempt him. So many years of being the despised Kingslayer have made him used to such exclusion. Outside the Capital he has been as hated as any man alive for all his adult life, and he expects no different in Winterfell. When he rode North he had hoped at least to have allies here in his brother and Brienne, but both have abandoned him. Now left to his own devices, there is nothing to keep him from sinking into his old insolence.

In the last year there had been no time for thinking; he had gone from one disaster to the next with no opportunity to reflect. There had been no time to grieve for Marcella and Tommen or consider Cersei, not when she had him constantly occupied with the business of their survival. Now with no duties to fulfill, there is nothing to do but think and remember. The very last thing Jaime wants to do. Unpleasant realizations are catching up to him, like wild dogs at his heels; he will have to run very hard indeed to stay ahead of them a little while longer. He is only beginning to suspect the entirety of his life has been a long mistake and it is more than he can bear on his own.

He does have one outlet to devote his days to: his continued training to fight with his left hand. This at least keeps him ahead of his demons, and gives him enough motivation to put aside his grief and venture out into the world. On these cold mornings at Winterfell it is all he has to keep him going.

All the halls of the Great Keep are warm, its windowless walls weeping with condensation from the hot springs below. But the air outside is cruelly cold and almost unbreathable ;  it slaps him across the face anytime he emerges. In the South most buildings are open to the sea air and the temperature is the same everywhere – here the great rooms are shut up tight against the outside, dim and dank. Here he is forever putting on and taking off clothes, and one goes from shivering cold to blazing hot one moment to the next. Just to cross the courtyard he has to wind layers of cover over himself, so that his beard doesn’t freeze over in the early morning air, and once he reaches his destination he will have to unwind it all again. It does conceal him effectively from prying eyes. The guards that have been placed on him surely know where he goes, but still he’d rather not draw any more attention than necessary as he makes his way to the Broken Tower.

Jaime spends most of his time here, when not shut up in Brienne’s quarters, in the one corner of Winterfell that he can use unobserved to practice with his sword. This is the older section of the hold, still shut and dusty with disuse just as it had been all those years before. Beside the Broken Tower is the crumbled ruin of the First Keep, where he had taken his twin to bed and pushed Bran Stark out of a high window. He tries not to look on it, but cannot help thinking of it each time he passes the half-collapsed tower, with the gargoyles that once lined the roof now crumbled on the ground and buried in snow. An uncomfortable location, but he has found nowhere better. The yard is too crowded with refugees, and the inner ward is full of Starks and their loyalists.

Huffing inside and slamming the door shut behind him, he shucks off his winter clothing with annoyance. He hasn’t yet worked out how to move well in these clothes. With all the overcoats and furs and cloaks and hats and gloves piled in so many layers, it makes him stiff and restrained in his motions. No wonder the Northmen fight with huge weapons and brute force. It is difficult to finesse when you’re encased in furs, as limber as a snowman. He will have to practice that way eventually, when he has built his strength enough, but not yet. Instead he will brave the chilly air with an undercoat and work up a sweat to warm him.

He has slowly amassed a small collection of equipment – practice swords, a straw dummy, a heavier pell, a target – some of it found in Brienne’s room, some pilfered from the armory. He had been careful to conceal his training at first, but it has become clear that no one will interrupt him. All of the buildings nearby are abandoned, and the busy courtyard makes enough noise to cover the sounds of his practice. Now he sets aside the Valyrian steel sword he had strapped to his waist, takes up a wooden sword, and starts the familiar motions that will limber him up for the real work ahead.

Half-cut, full-cut, thrust, lunge. Jaime runs through the familiar motions slowly at first, trying to clear his mind and not to give in to frustration. He has done these exercises all a thousand times with his left arm, and still he has not the strength in it that he once did in his right. But with his duties in King’s Landing he never had the time he would have liked for this work, and here he has whole days to devote to training. Here he will weight the wooden sword to build his arm and fight relentlessly, attacking the pell until his sword is splinters and he is out of breath and aching. And then take it up again, and again.

Sword fighting has always been the one thing he had that was his, and his alone. He didn’t share it with Cersei or take it up to please his father. Tywin had been a bloodthirsty commander but indifferent at best to actual fighting. That was the province of lesser men in his eyes, as was dueling at tourney, as was knighthood in general. Lannisters, according to him, were above such fanciful notions as heroism and honor.

No, the blade was Jaime’s own passion, his true talent, his real self. Losing his sword hand has still been in many ways the most devastating loss of all. He has been not quite himself ever since.

Which makes this training all the more frustrating. It had all come to him so easily before. Even as an inexperienced young lad operating mostly on instinct, he had taken to swordplay as naturally as a fish to swimming. It had been work, yes, and took hours of daily training to really excel, but it had never been difficult. Not like this. Even after several years of training with his left hand, it still doesn’t feel natural. He can drill and drill the movements with his left arm, but in the heat of battle he knows he will lose precious seconds of time reminding himself to reverse his movements. All his angles of attack still lean right by instinct, when he needs to go left.

Having a sparring partner had helped. Bronn had been ideal – he had never gone easy on him, and he had been well paid to keep his mouth shut.

As he resets the wood dummy for another round, Jaime wonders again where the sellsword might have landed. He had left a good amount of money in Bronn’s quarters before fleeing King’s Landing, and most likely Bronn had the good sense to sail away with it. The farther away from Westeros the better. But if he had stayed at Kings Landing with some foolish hope to profit off the Queen… well, tales were filtering north of the bloody aftermath of the Queen’s death. He prefers to think that Lord Blackwater took the gold and got himself the wife and castle he had wanted.

Either way, most likely Jaime will never see Bronn again.

Perhaps he should have brought the sellsword with him after all. Someone to guard his back would be most welcome, and so would the sellsword’s levity. Truthfully, he rather misses the company. But of course, he would have nothing to induce his loyalty here, not without riches or power to offer. Bronn was a mercenary, not a friend. He might have been Tyrion’s friend, despite that they had begun their time together much the same way. But that is not the sort of thing that happens to Jaime. 

He takes up the real sword now in his left hand, spinning it over his wrist and setting himself before the straw dummy. He attacks, slashing at the head, the arms, the chest, dancing over the stone floor with increasing speed. When he relaxes and doesn’t think on it, a little of his former grace returns.  He holds Joffrey’s sword with more and more confidence, though he does not yet think of it as his own. If he did he would rename it, but he has thought of nothing better. Widow’s Wail. Maybe Widower’s Wail would be more appropriate. He is a widower of sorts now. But why is there no word for a father whose children have died? There are orphans and widows, but a father with no children is only a man, especially if he had never really been their father. Jaime is all three now: orphan, widower, and childless.

It had been Tommen’s sword too, once, but he had never wielded it to Jaime’s knowledge. He had thought to teach him one day, wondered if he would take to it the way he himself once had. It would have been his one chance to father the boy. But Tommen was a gentle child, and surrounded by so much blood and death that at the time he was loathe to introduce more. Better he would stay innocent a little longer, and play with his kittens.

Jaime grimaces, as he often does when he thinks of Tommen, and slashes a little more vigorously. He can still hear Cersei’s heartless reply when he asked her of their son. Calling him a traitor, calling him weak. At this he grips Widow’s Wail very tightly and increases his blows, by now simply pummeling away artlessly at the straw man. Traitor. Who did Tommen betray?  His mistake had been to love his wife and his mother both, who had hated each other. In the end the only way to resolve those opposite instincts had been to annihilate himself. That much Jaime could understand very well.

He wishes he had been angrier with her, for Tommen. Tommen deserved that much, at least. He was only a boy, and it had been his misfortune to be born their son.

Jaime lets the anger flow through him now and out his arm until he cuts the makeshift practice dummy to shreds, and the screaming of his muscles drowns out the memories for a little while. He will have to remake the dummy, of course. But he has the time. He has nothing but time.

This is how he passes the days at Winterfell now – honing his skills to a fine point, as sharp as he can manage. At first practicing for only a few hours at a time, and later nearly every waking moment. If the Starks will not send him out to meet the dead, he knows he need only be patient and the dead will come to him. Other Northern holds have fallen, and inevitably the Night King’s army will come to Winterfell. On that day, regardless of what has gone before, they will need every man.

If he could die a hero, it might not all have been for nothing. This is the best he can hope for now.

Eventually the sun rides high in the sky and his strength flags; he needs to eat, much as he dislikes going to the Great Hall. Nobody troubles him there, but there are a great many curious stares, and more than one person he is trying to avoid. These days Jaime is telling himself he will be better off alone – a convenient belief for a man despised, whose loved ones are either dead or turned their backs. It’s easier this way. It makes it possible to sheathe his sword and rewind the cloak around him and venture out into the cold again, trundling to the Great Hall for the noonday meal.

He’s missed most of it, fortunately. By the time he finds his way to one of the long tables most of the food has turned to empty bowls and remnants, and he has to approach the cook at the big pot for more of whatever stew passes for a meal these days. Nothing resembles the joyous banquet he had attended all those years ago where the meat had been plentiful and baked root vegetables piled high. The food is rationed now, and laughter is scarce. Only warmth remains, which is the best that could be said of the porridge they give him. He had missed the stew, or so the unsmiling cook says.

Jaime seats himself at the end of a long trestle table, well away from the guttering candelabrum and their feeble glow. He picks at a bowl of porridge that is almost impressive in its ability to taste like nothing whatsoever, and a hard lump of bread that he might break a tooth on. He is learning not to turn up his nose at these meals, however unappetizing. Hunger would always win out over snobbishness, though he will grumble to himself that even under siege and deprivation the food in the Capital had been far better, with fresh fruits and vegetables in great variety. Even the Casterly Rock of his memory is filled with warm bread and sweets. Not that it was all banquets and finery, he had been forced to make do in his time. Jaime had been a soldier too, and eaten field rations with the rest of the men, although admittedly he had always been given the finer options due his station.

Well, perhaps he is a bit spoiled.

Back at King’s Landing, before he had sent her away, Brienne had said as much. It was over a tray of food, much finer than this meal, full of dates and fish and good cheeses. He had casually passed over a bruised apple for a finer one, as a matter of habit and without much thought to it. She had called him spoiled and taken the bruised one. She’d said it in her usual dour, unsmiling way, but somehow he had known she meant nothing malicious by it. It was only the sort of sparring they did then, once he had no sword hand to duel her with. They had lunched together a dozen times like that in the gardens, those times that he could reliably get away from the Kingsguard and his sister. They had spoken at leisure, although of course he had done most of the talking, and had amused himself with attempts to break her iron composure. Either irritation or amusement would do. He felt a small victory each time her temper flared and she gave him a heated glare. Or better yet, much better yet, when she looked away with a faint, sweet smile.

Those warm afternoons are a distant memory now, growing more distant all the time. 

He shakes it off and tries to concentrate instead on the ache of his muscles, thinking on his old lessons at the feet of great knights, like Ser Arthur Dayne. Surely the Sword of the Morning had never complained of the food, or thought wistfully of lazy summer days in the midst of war. But could he have fought left-handed, if he had to?

His thoughts are cruelly interrupted by someone sliding into the seat across from him. It’s the fat maester with the self-effacing grin that seems to be permanently etched onto his features. “Mind if I sit?” he asks, even though he already has.

Jaime ignores him as pointedly as he can, which seems to dissuade him not at all.

“I’m glad to see you out and about! I would have thought you’d be back among the living by now. You should really be getting your strength back. But I suppose you had quite a shock, what with your sister and all, so I shouldn’t blame you for a slow recovery. Oh, I’m so sorry, was that terribly rude of me?”

Jaime glares at Sam briefly before returning to his lousy meal. “What exactly do you want of me? I have no need of a maester anymore, much less a failed one.”

Sam’s friendly smile is immune to his coldness. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I thought you might enjoy the company.”

“Why?” he asks mildly, not very interested in the answer.

Sam takes the question more seriously than he meant it. “Well, you don’t seem to know much of anyone here. I thought you might be lonely.”

Jaime blinks in surprise. Lonely? He’d been called many things, most of them less than polite, but never that.

Sam makes as much effort not to notice his rudeness as Jaime has put into ignoring his existence. He leans over conspiratorially, as though confessing. “You know, I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced. You being unconscious and all when we met. My family name is Tarly. Samwell Tarly.”

Oh. Jaime sits back in his seat and stares.

Lord Tarly’s other son. He would never have guessed it to look at him. Lord Tarly had not spoken of Sam, though Jaime recalled from long lessons about the houses of Westeros that there had been another heir, said to be an unsuitable sort, who had been discarded. It had not occurred to him to wonder what had happened to him. Neither had it occurred to him to find out which house the kindly maester had belonged to. But he should have asked, shouldn’t he?

He meets his gaze at length for the first time, his face grim. “Tarly. Of Horn Hill?”

“That’s right.” Sam is still smiling, but now the smile does not quite reach his eyes. “You commanded my father and brother, I believe.”

“I did.” His mouth has gone quite dry. “You’ve had word, then, of their fate?”

“I have,” Sam nods. “I heard of the battle at the Citadel, and later had the full story from your brother Tyrion.”

Jaime can’t be sure what Sam might consider the full story. If he is fortunate, that story will fall somewhere short of the awful truth. “They fought bravely,” he says, deciding not to approach the details of their deaths.

“I’m sure they did.” Sam gestures to Jaime’s chunk of bread. “Are you going to eat that?”

Jaime shrugs, and watches Sam reach for it across the table, take a bite, and chew it vigorously.

Now it makes sense, why he had been kind to him. He must think it is owed… somehow. The reasoning is obscure to Jaime, considering Sam’s father and brother had perished under his leadership. Really if any debt is owed, it is in reverse.

“Your father…” he struggles to think of something positive to say of Lord Tarly. The man was an officious prick, in his opinion, and he had always disliked him. “… he was a strong commander, well respected by his men.”

Sam seems indifferent to this praise. “Feared by his men, and his family too. But thank you kindly.”

"Dickon saved my life on the field,” Jaime remembers a little more fondly. “A Dothraki would have run me through if he had not intervened. He was inexperienced, but he kept his head about him and fought well. He seemed a fine young man.”

Sam nods, still chewing his bread.

“We lost many fine men that day. So many.” He has to shake himself a little, to dismiss images of melting skin under steaming armor. “I wish for their sake they’d had a better commander.”

He doesn’t know why he says that last bit. He has never lacked confidence in his ability. But he thinks fairly often of that battle, and it pains him to speak of it.

But Sam smiles warmly. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I heard that you refused to abandon the soldiers on the field, even though you could have ridden ahead with the gold or fled when the dragons appeared. I heard you charged a dragon with a lance, like a real storybook knight. You must be terribly brave.”

“Or terribly stupid,” Jaime says, going back to picking at his porridge.

“I suspect most brave people are, a little.”

Jaime snorts. He has no argument against that.

“I doubt any army could defeat a Targaryen with dragons on the field. I’ve studied the records. Surrendering immediately is probably the best strategy. But I am a bit of a coward,” Sam finishes in a conspiratorial tone.

Jaime gestures to the thick, wide sword belt riding well above the maester’s waist. “That’s an interesting souvenir for a coward to carry.”

Sam smiles sheepishly. “It’s the family sword. Heartsbane. Really I have no business bearing it, but there’s no one else left of my house to wield it. It’s Valyrian steel, and we need as many such blades as we can get in this war. As soon as I find someone talented enough to use it, I’ll give it up. For the moment, it’s more likely to be stolen and sold on the black market if I leave it lying around. Do you happen to need a sword?”

“I have a Valyrian blade of my own.” Jaime does not show him Widow’s Wail.

Sam’s smile stretches into a grin. “Another one! Now, that’s good news, and surely in the right hands. I mean, hand. I mean…” His grin drops as he stumbles over his words. “I mean to say that my Father always said you were the best swordsman in all of Westeros. He used to tell Dickon and me tales of you being knighted on the field by Arthur Dayne at only fifteen. Well, he mostly told Dickon, but I was there too.”

Jaime is suddenly irritated at himself for not being kinder to Dickon Tarly those few times they had met. He could at least have called him by the right name, at least once. He doesn’t know why he didn’t.

“I remember that sort of thing a lot now. I mean, he was a little bit awful, as a father. And it was because of Dickon I got sent to the Wall, so he could be the heir instead of me.” Sam manages not to sound very bitter about this, talking with his mouth full of bread. “But it’s still hard not to think about them, now they’re gone. There were some nice moments in there, and it’s a lot harder to be angry with them when they’re dead. If anything, I’m mad about that. Not getting to be angry with them anymore. Grief’s a funny thing...”

Jaime looks up at Sam sharply, suspicious that he is being given a talking-to. But no; the maester seems incapable of ulterior motives, or indeed of any deception at all. He has the kind of open face that hides nothing, and his eyes read pure sincerity. Much like a certain lady knight he knows.

“Anyway. That’s four Valyrian swords then. Plus one knife.” Sam finishes the chunk of bread and brushes the crumbs from his beard. “Not nearly enough, but at least the number’s increasing. It’s one of the only things that kills the White Walkers, that and dragonglass. And fire, for their wights.”

Jaime actually has many questions about this, which multiply the more he thinks on it. How do they know? What has been tried? Would ordinary steel do nothing? Would it fail to pierce their skin, or would it wound and not kill? What if you chopped the creature into pieces? Why should it be that Valyrian steel, from across the Narrow Sea, is the only thing that kills monsters from the north of Westeros? How many of these White Walkers are there, and how many wights could each command? What made a White Walker different from a wight? And was this Night King a White Walker himself, or something else entirely?

But he chooses to ask none of these questions. Anyway, Sam Tarly requires little encouragement to continue talking..

“Lord Tyrion and I have been going through the books I brought from the Citadel. Unfortunately most things concerning the White Walkers are considered fiction, unworthy of scholarly study. Over time they became spook tales, and not particularly useful ones. We’re having more luck researching tangential concepts, like the innate properties of Valyrian steel...”

“Oh, and there he is!” Sam waves, and Jaime turns his head to see Tyrion walking into the great hall, his eyes widening slightly when he sees him.

Jaime turns back to his bowl and forces himself not to watch. The brothers have not spoken since their terrible argument, and they have successfully avoided being in the same room until now. Tyrion will come to him, or he will not; there is nothing he can do about it.

“Shall I call him over?” Sam asks.

“No.” Jaime pushes back from the table. His stomach is still growling, but he doesn’t think he can force down any more porridge. “I believe I’ve finished.”

Sam looks up at him. “You’ll be going to the War Councils, I imagine? About the Coronation?”

He almost doesn’t want to ask. “Coronation?”

“Oh.” Sam looks mildly guilty, and again Jaime wonders how much has been kept from him. “We received a raven this morning. Euron Greyjoy was crowned King of Westeros. He claims he and the Queen were wed before she died of a miscarriage, and he is supported by the Queen’s Hand and small council in that tale. And, well, a large fleet of ships, and a rather large force of mercenaries from the Golden Company.”

Jaime tastes bile. Qyburn and Euron, a match made in the darkest of seven hells. Using the money he himself retrieved from Highgarden to hold King’s Landing. This is what all his efforts on Cersei’s behalf have bought.

“Do you suppose it’s true? That they married?” Sam asks hesitantly, looking up at him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jaime tells him. Eager to change the subject, he seizes on a strange idea. 

“Would you like to learn how to wield that?” He nods at Heartsbane, jutting out at an odd angle from Sam’s hip.

The maester shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I’ve had training with the Night’s Watch. It didn’t do me much good.”  

“I could teach you,” he offers.

Sam looks stunned. “That’s… very kind of you. But Jon tried to train me, when we were at the Wall together. I was hopeless.”

“Jon isn’t the finest swordsman in Westeros,” Jaime says. “And I’ve commanded soldiers of all abilities, or usually lack thereof. There is always a use for someone on the field, and there is surely some skill that will suit you.” 

“You really think so?” Sam brightens considerably. “Gods, what my father would say if he knew Jaime Lannister offered to train me personally. He’d probably drop dead again of shock.”

_ Which is entirely the point,  _ Jaime thinks.  _ Let both our fathers roll in their graves. _

He walks out of the Great Hall feeling better than he has in some time. He has a purpose again. A small one, admittedly, but it is better than nothing. And at least one person at Winterfell will be tolerable company, while he waits for the Army of the Dead to arrive.

The feeling lasts only long enough for him to be accosted by fur clad Northern guards just outside the door. Six of them, lumbering and dull-looking; not so much a wolf pack as a colony of beavers. “Kennels are that way,” he gestures.

“Starks sent for you,” the largest one says, his hand hovering in front of Jaime’s chest.

He starts to retort, but he notices Tyrion striding over with his hands behind his back, looking solemn, and it brings him up short.

“Let’s get on with it then,” he says, and leads the way out into the cold. If the Starks should decide to punish him for his sins after all, he is ready for it. He is tired of waiting for something else to happen.

* * *

Jaime has not been to a godswood since he was a boy at Casterly Rock, and the Stone Gardens were a paltry thing compared to the vast and silent grove at Winterfell. Acres long, autumnal, ancient. The leaves cling still to the trees here with colors of deep crimson, and bright yellow. The snow on the ground is a light dusting rather than a deep blanket, and the air is somehow warmer within.

They did not worship the old gods in the westerlands, but they had kept the godswood as a place of contemplation and peace. It had been beautiful, though much too quiet and solemn for a rowdy young boy, and he had never spent much time there. Jaime wonders if he will ever see the Stone Gardens again, or any of the places of his childhood. He honestly had not missed them until he came to the snowy North and the gulfs between their ways and his reminded him continually of all he had lost.

Their small party walks some ways towards the Heart Tree, in what feels like should be silent contemplation. Tyrion looks over at him many times, but Jaime will not meet his gaze.

“I should explain a few things to you,” Tyrion finally says in a low voice, eyeing their escorts.

“I think not,” Jaime says tightly. “Your new friends can tell me what you’ve been planning.”

“You think I am conspiring against you?!” Tyrion sounds offended. “For gods’ sake, Jaime.”

Now he is annoyed, and he is the one not looking at his brother. 

Jaime can take only a few minutes of this before speaking up. “What was it you wanted to explain?”

They walk a few more steps in silence before his brother sighs and speaks. “Euron’s taken the Iron Throne.”

“I know,” Jaime says, suddenly grateful to Sam for giving him at least this much information. “He claims they were wed.”

“Is it true?”

“I doubt it. Cersei said she would  _ consider _ marrying him once the war was won, and not before.” But Jaime frowns. He can’t be sure of anything regarding Cersei anymore. She had, after all, been conspiring with Euron to bring the Golden Company without telling him – him, the commander of her armies! – and there could have been much more that she had kept from him. Euron, that preening, repulsive jackass. Cersei had found him amusing. She found him amusing even as he taunted Jaime at every opportunity. Perhaps especially then.

Much as he still grieves and misses Cersei, he isn’t sure anymore that he liked her very much. His feelings are all in a tangle, confused by the massive hole in his life she has left behind.

“We’re looking at more than one war now,” Tyrion cuts into his thoughts, “losing ground to the walkers to the North, and Euron building up his forces to the South. Things are a bit on edge, so try not to antagonize the Starks, will you?”

“Why not have your Queen’s dragons simply burn these White Walkers?” he asks, honestly confused. “If they can be killed by fire, you have the perfect solution, so why the difficulty? I’m getting the impression that I‘ve missed something important…? Do you want to explain or shall we play a guessing game?”

Tyrion looks at his boots when he answers. “Danaerys will not bring the dragons.”

Jaime stops, forcing the entire retinue to grind to a halt. “Why in the world not?”

“She’s already lost one.” Tyrion explains about Viserion, how the Night’s King brought down the great dragon and raised him again as a wight. “She will lose no more of her children, nor will she lead them against one another.”

Jaime groans and rolls his eyes skyward. It’s too outrageous to be terrifying, this turn of events. “Oh, by the Seven… you’ve given them a dragon. For fuck’s sake, Tyrion, what were you thinking?”

“I tried to stop her!” 

“Well whose fool idea was it to send your precious King in the North so far beyond the wall to catch one wight? Couldn’t you have sent a larger force, without anyone valuable? Did you have to go so far into enemy territory? What sort of idiot would make this plan?”

“My kind of idiot, I admit.” Tyrion mumbles past this point quickly, abashed. “But Danaerys is not abandoning us. She will not bring the dragons, but she still fights with us to hold the Wall.”

“With what, a scowl? What use is the Dragon Queen without her dragons?”

The Stark guards press them to get moving. Their conversation continues in lowered voices as they approach the center of the godswood.

“Danaerys brings the Dothraki forces to our aid. They are a very powerful ally, Jaime.”

“Oh good! The Dothraki! Horse lords in the snow!” Jaime shakes his head, laughing with disbelief. “I would love to watch them try to fight on horseback over six feet of snowpack. The desert warriors must be even more miserable in the frozen North than I am. Good thing they decimated my forces before they came, otherwise we might all have a fighting chance against the army of the dead! What about your Undirtied warriors, do you at least have them?”

Tyrion looks increasingly dispirited. “Unsullied. And they are holding Casterly Rock against Euron’s forces.”

“Holding it for whom? If we lose this war, there will be nothing to hold! Or is Danaerys planning to rule a frozen wasteland, just as Cersei wanted to do?”

“If someone doesn’t face Euron, we’ll find him crawling up our backside very soon. Our sister may have been content to sit back and watch us be demolished by the Night’s King, but it seems Greyjoy is an impatient sort. He’s already sending his Navy up the coastline, and the Golden Company marches through the Riverlands. He may well intend to march on Winterfell.”

Their conversation halts as their small group approaches their destination. The great heart tree stands at the center of the godswood ,  with a small group waiting beneath it. A few Stark bannermen at the periphery, looking solemn. The Stark sisters waiting together beneath the tree, their brother seated against its trunk. 

The enormous heart tree winds well above the others, white and bare and disconcerting. A face carved into the great wide trunk is more and more visible as they approach, its red eyes weeping sap. Old gods and weirwoods; it is all unnerving to a southerner used to septs and the seven. Nameless gods without altars to contain them, acres of untamed nature within castle walls – Jaime likes it not. A traditional godswood is harmless enough, but this place has more than a touch of uncanny power.

Tyrion looks just as uncomfortable beside him. Has he been here before? It doesn’t seem so.

_ Of course he has,  _ his sister’s voice tells him. Suspicious, disdainful, angry.  _ He meets the wretched Starks here to plot against our house. _

_ We have no house _ , he answers. He hears her less and less, since he started training, and to be honest he is not sorry for it. She makes him tense.

The three Starks await him. None of them are yet twenty; he is to be judged by children. The sisters talk to each other as they approach, the smaller Arya covering her mouth to whisper into her sister’s bent ear. They look displeased. Bran sits apart from them, his bowed face concealed behind furs. As they approach the heart tree, the entire group falls quiet, and the eerie silence of the godswood swells around them all.

Jaime’s eyes flicker up to the face on the white tree. Its wooden countenance looms just over the Stark boy, watching everything beneath its branches. The sap drips thickly from its eyes like bloody tears but its expression is impassive, inhuman. He avoids its uncomfortable gaze.

Sansa clears her throat and straightens away from her sister’s whispers, suddenly regal. The Lady of Winterfell speaks formally, with all the considerable dignity she has inherited from her parents. “Lord Jaime. Thank you for joining us. We have a letter from our brother Jon.”

He takes heart from that. Perhaps they have seen sense. “Will I be joining him at the battlefront after all?” he asks hopefully.

“Not exactly,” she says, exchanging a glance with Arya. “He sends a request from the Dragon Queen… Danaerys Targaryen wishes to receive you at Castle Black.”

He looks to Tyrion. His brother bows his head regretfully. He knows about this, clearly, and has at least the decency to look ashamed of it.

_ Oh good, we’re straight to the bad news,  _ Jaime tells himself bitterly. _ For a moment there I thought this might go well. _

He looks back at the Starks. “And if I don’t care to go?”

“For the moment it is a request,” Sansa tells him. “But I expect in time it will be a demand.”

Tyrion speaks up. “I will appeal to Danaerys. Give me time. She is… a bit disappointed to have lost the opportunity to defeat Queen Cersei herself. For many years she has been envisioning how she would make the usurpers of her throne pay. Now the usurpers have been, well, usurped. She wants the commander of the army who took Highgarden as a good-enough substitute.”

_ Tyrion, you should have predicted this, _ Jaime thinks with rueful humor.  _ Of course she wants my head, I killed her father. And I’m the last one left alive of four regimes since. My talent for surviving terrible rulers was bound to result in being executed sooner or later. Did you not think of this when you brought a Targaryen back to Westeros? _

“Jaime came to us under the agreement at the Dragonpit, that we would set such things aside. She can’t then take him prisoner. And neither should you, by the way.” Tyrion actually sounds quite irritated about this. Jaime is a little startled to hear his brother still defending him.

“I agreed to nothing at the Dragonpit,” Sansa says. “And Jon may have bent the knee to the Dragon Queen, but I have not. So I will make up my own mind.” She looks askance at Jaime. “I am not eager to obey a Targaryen. But there is already a Lannister at Winterfell. Two is too many.”

Arya nods in agreement. She has been moving from one side of her sister to the other, restlessly, glaring at both Lannisters with feral and burning gaze. If Sansa is the diplomat, little Arya is her Queensguard, silent and watchful and eager to open the throat of anyone who threatens her. Though he has not yet seen the girl draw her sword, Jaime does not doubt that she can use it. Something in the way she moves about reminds him of a water dancer, like the Bravosi he had dueled long ago. She has had training, though where and how she would have gotten it is a mystery to him.

“If it would help, Jaime can take my place here, and I can move on to Castle Black,” Tyrion offers.

“You may do as you like. It was Jon that recommended you stay with us as a liason. It was not my preference.” Sansa looks especially cold and haughty in this moment, and Jaime understands here that Tyrion’s position is more precarious than he claimed. This answers his questions about where their marriage stands.

_ A shame, _ Jaime thinks.  _ They might have made a good match had Father not forced it upon them. And had our families not been busily killing each other. _

“But,” Sansa continues, “as for Lord Jaime… Danaerys may ask for many things we do not want to give, but it will not trouble me to hand him over. If there is some reason we should keep him, make it known.”

_ It should trouble you, _ he wants to say. Sansa has not seen Danaerys’ dragons. She may be indifferent to his fate, but if she had seen men burning beneath their fiery breath she would hesitate to send any man to such a death.  _ Then again, Catelyn would have set me aflame in a moment if it would save her children. She is certainly her mother’s daughter. _

Jaime Lannister does not fear death, but burning… that, the thought of sends a cold chill through his body. He’s seen too many deaths by fire, and heard too many screams of the damned and dying, not to dread its possibility. He would take absolutely any other fate over that.

“It’s all the same to me,” Jaime says obstinately, despite his dismay. “Taken by Aerys’ daughter or Ned’s daughter, if I am to sit uselessly aside while this war rages what difference does it make which cell I’m in? The two of you can fight it out. That should at least be amusing.”

“Stop helping,” Tyrion snaps at him. “I’m trying to save your life,” he finishes more quietly.

In spite of everything, he cannot help but be touched that his brother still fights for him, despite that it will win him no allies on either side. 

Of course Jaime knows this would go far better if he did not go out of his way to antagonize everyone. As ever, if people are not already poisoned against him he is quick to apply the poison himself and taste it back later. Would it hurt him to try to be civil? In truth Jaime is not always sure what is going to fall out of his mouth when he opens it. Sometimes he surprises himself.

Meanwhile, Tyrion is trying another tactic.

“Bran, I am glad to see you well.” Tyrion takes on a more amiable, charming tone, as he steps towards the youngest Stark. “I heard you had adventures beyond the wall. I hope that the saddle I designed for you was helpful.” The guards who had escorted them to the godswood grasp the dwarf by the shoulders before he can approach further. Clearly no one is permitted to approach the tree. He acquiesces and backs away, still appealing to the silent boy. “Sam Tarly tells me you are a Three-Eyed Raven now. I can’t say I know what that means, but I have read of green-seers and what they can do. Visions, foretellings. What have you seen, Bran? Did you tell your sisters to allow us to stay?” 

Bran doesn’t answer. He doesn’t pay any attention to Tyrion, in fact, or to any of them. He seems focused on a distant music that none of them can hear.

Arya speaks up protectively. “Our brother is not a fortune-teller for hire. Leave him be.”

Tyrion quickly turns a placating gesture on the Lady of Winterfell and the assembled Stark loyalists. “I only mean to emphasize my point. You have nothing to gain from giving Jaime to Danaerys, and you will lose a great commander and strategist. Ask your brother, I’m sure he will agree. Ignore her request and I will smooth it over. My Queen has already pledged her aid to the King in the North, she will not withdraw her support over this.”

Sansa looks unimpressed. “Jon is concerned only with the war to the North. My worry is with the South. Euron Greyjoy has a formidable fleet of ships, and he has acquired a sizable mercenary army. What I fear is that he will push North while my brother is occupied with the White Walkers. From all I know of the Iron Islanders, they covet our lands in the North and will attack anyone who is a potential enemy. Theon has taken Winterfell once already, I don’t doubt his uncle means to do the same.” She takes a step towards them. “What aid can you offer us on that front? What remains of your army, Lord Jaime?”

“I left them behind when I left the Queen.” He frowns. More and more, this seems to have been a mistake. He could at least have tried to bring some of the men with him. “I imagine some joined Euron and others moved on, but as to where, I know no more than you.”

“If you returned to the South, would they stand with you?”

Jaime doesn’t know. They served the crown, not him. Some were Lannister bannermen, but others were not. If they no longer served the crown, there was no telling where their loyalties would lie. They could have joined the Brotherhood Without Banners for all he knows.

“Doubtful,” he admits painfully. “Unless the Dragon Queen plans to give back our coffers from Casterly Rock, there is little to entice them. They would have marched North with me on Cersei’s order, but with the order rescinded and her gone, I imagine those who did not remain with the Iron Throne have disbanded.”

Sansa nods. If she is disappointed, she does not show it. “Then you are no use to us. You bring us no forces, and we have no reason to trust you. You personally have killed too many of our countrymen to fight at their sides.”

“You fight with wildings, and they once were your enemy. Soldiers will understand. It was war, do you expect me to fight with a wooden sword? You would fight no less fiercely for your own family,” he points out, with an eye towards Arya.

“Our House has not committed the crimes of war that yours has. The murder of our family at dinner, for instance. You supported their deeds, even if you did not commit them.”

Jaime is not about to discuss that debacle – he had disapproved of the massacre, the violation of guest right and the sheer dirty trickery of it, but the Starks will hardly believe him if he told them so.

“If your family had committed crimes, would you not have fought for it still? If you loved them?”

“I would not love any man who could plot out the Red Wedding, even if it were my own father.”

_ Have you never loved someone terrible then? Lucky you, _ he says, but only to himself.

“All our fathers are dead,” he says finally, and sincerely. “Sooner or later, we will all have to start making our own legacies. There is no reason we should carry on their wars, not when we can help each other.”

“Perhaps you should help Danaerys then,” Sansa points out reasonably.

“No.” Jaime shakes his head vehemently. It defeats his own point, but he cannot give in on this matter. “Even if she decides not to feed me to her dragons, I won’t serve the Mad King’s daughter. I will do whatever I can for the North, but for the Targaryens I’ll do nothing.”

Arya cuts in. “Then you know how we feel.”

They’ve reached an impasse. Uneasy silence falls over the godswood.

Sansa suddenly rolls her head back against her shoulders crossly in an expression of unmistakable teenage insolence, looking her age for the first time. “Bran,” she grouses, “this isn’t going to work.”

Through all this Bran Stark has spoken not a word, indeed hardly looked at them. Jaime focuses on the third sibling for the first time. A strange boy, the youngest Stark. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, draped in furs like all of them, but still somehow apart. The white roots of the heart tree cradle him so perfectly they could have been made for him.

Bran Stark moves for the first time since they arrived, turning his head to look at his sister. He speaks in a quiet, droning voice, drained of all emotion. 

“We musn’t give him to Danaerys. Jaime Lannister must stay at Winterfell.”

Sansa looks frustrated, as though this is a conversation they have had many times before. “If he gave the slightest indication he might cooperate, I’d be a lot more willing to defy her.”

“Our houses must face this war together, or none of us, North or South, will survive it.”

Somehow once he has started looking at Bran, Jaime finds it difficult to look away. A deep unease fills him, looking at the youngest Stark. The great white tree curling around him looks like an elaborate wooden throne. The curling roots look not at all as though Bran Stark had come home and settled himself in that dirt cradle. It’s more as if the boy had been sitting there in that very spot for years and years and the tree, and all the godswood, had formed itself around him. Or as if the boy had never returned at all and the tree had grown an effigy of him there.

“I don’t know if I can trust a Lannister,” Sansa says tightly.

“You must learn to, and soon.” Bran looks between Sansa and Jaime. “This is why I called you here. Our time is short.”

Jaime furrows his brow. Bran called them here? All of them?

“We need him,” Bran tells his sisters. “He has a role to play, as we all do. His will be to pierce the dragon’s tail, to drown the kraken in the black waters, and guard the stone gate when the Kings of Winter return. You must trust him to do what needs to be done.”

Jaime has no idea what he’s talking about. “Why have you called me here, young Lord Stark? I’m sure you can persuade your sister to accept my help without marching me out here through the snow.”

Bran addresses him with his monotone and lifeless voice as though he is reading aloud from a book he has read many times before. “I need you to become the man you were always meant to be. Not next year. Not tomorrow. Now.”

Jaime blinks at him, confused. That sounds very like something his father said to him once. Exactly like.

“Lion of Lannister. It’s true that you will do whatever is asked of you, however insolently. You have made only two real decisions in all your life. Everything else from joining the Kingsguard to leaving it has been been someone else’s idea. You’ve run from your responsibilities at every turn. Now there is no one left to command you and you are adrift. But your house is not gone, Kingslayer. **You** are the head of your house. If you can’t find a way to lead it we are all lost.”

Jaime frowns. A lecture from Ned Stark’s youngest son on the state of House Lannister is galling enough, but sounding exactly like Tywin Lannister as he does it is strangely troubling.

“There is so much for you still to accomplish. Before anything else you must stop running and face yourself. You’ve begun to do it, but there isn’t enough time. You must move much faster now, Kingslayer. We need you braver and stronger than this, and starting very soon. If you want to fill your page in the White Book, there are certain truths you must face. Beginning here and now.”

Jaime’s half-empty entry in the annals of the Kingsguard, that he regrets to this day. How could he…? Green-seer, his brother said. Visions.

It is as if Bran knows exactly how disconcerting his words are are, and continually makes them even more invasive, even more revealing. “You should have hid the wildfire better, Kingslayer. You never imagined your sister would use it one day. You’ve always underestimated her cruelty. You blamed yourself for those deaths, for ruining her. I know you planned never to leave King’s Landing, thought you would always be able to stop Cersei from hurting people. You would have stayed Kingsguard for life, would have watched over your sister for life. You mean all your vows for life. You just keep swearing them to the wrong people.”

“Stop that,” he says sharply. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but there is a knot of fear growing in his gut. Meanwhile everything else around him is fading away, the godswood, everyone present. There is only him now, and this strange boy.

“All your life is in ruins, and everything you’ve done has been undone. You saved King’s Landing from wildfire, and then Cersei burned it. You killed a mad king, and his daughter’s come to take the throne. You became a knight, and lost your honor, and now even the Kingsguard is no more. You devoted your life to protecting your house, and they’ve all died. You’ve failed in every way. The shame of it is killing you.”

He glares at Bran with all the considerable pride the Lion of Lannister can bring to bear. “I don’t know who told you these things – maybe my brother has been telling tales. I am ashamed of nothing that I have done.”

“Aren’t you? Your brothers of the Kingsguard – the true ones, Ser Gerold Hightower, Ser Barristan Selmy. Truer knights than you. Haven’t you shamed them? Unworthy, headstrong, arrogant. Killing your king, failing to protect Rhaegar’s children. Siring children on your own sister, while wearing the white cloak, under an oath of chastity. Having her in the White Sword Tower. What would they say? What would Ser Arthur Dayne, your hero, have said?”

Jaime grits his teeth. Oh yes, they would condemn him. They may have done nothing to protest or intervene when the King burned his subjects alive, or when they heard the Queen’s frightened screams from his chamber at night, but they would not hesitate to damn him for stabbing the madman to save the city. After that, after all that, what did their condemnation matter? What did the white cloak matter?

Yet still it hurts. It hurts.

“They’ll say nothing now. They’re dead,” he says easily, despite his inner turmoil. “And no one still living has the right to judge. All the true knights are gone.”

“Except Brienne of Tarth.”

Jaime narrows his eyes at him.. “Except Brienne,” he repeats. He wonders suddenly how much more Bran knows.

“The one true knight in Westeros. We will need Lady Brienne alive at the end of everything. I hope that you will be able to save her, Kingslayer.”

Suddenly, when he registers what Bran just said, Jaime can’t quite breathe. He starts to reply and chokes on the words. What does he mean, save Brienne?

Arya and Sansa both speak up at once, both saying, “Can she survive then? You mean that he can save her?” They sound upset, but not shocked – they know something of this prophecy.

Bran addresses them. “Remember what I told you and your sworn sword weeks ago. The future is murky, some things are clear and others… less so. Her fate rests on a knife’s edge; could fall either way. More than likely the North will be her death. ”

“Enough of this… cryptic nonsense.” Jaime is agitated now, even frightened. “Is Brienne in some kind of danger? Does she need help?”

“She is in the same danger we all are, but it will be worse for her. Brienne of Tarth will face the most terrible of the horrors to come. And you know she will take as many blows as she can, to protect the rest of us. She does not value her life as we do. It will kill her, if you cannot stop it. You are the only one who can.”

Sansa sounds equally surprised, though apparently for a very different reason. ”The Kingslayer? Bran, are you certain? You said it would take great courage and sacrifice to ensure Brienne lives through the war. We can’t expect Jaime Lannister to fight for her.”

Bran sounds almost bored of it all, as though what he says should be patently obvious to everyone present. “Of course he will. He loves her.”

“I what?” Jaime speaks up, stunned.

“You have always loved her,” Bran turns back to him, “since first she lead you on a chain through the Riverlands. You would have died for her, without hesitation. You still would. But you had to keep sending her away. From King’s Landing, from Riverrun, from the Dragonpit. It was like tearing your own heart out of your chest every time, but you had no choice.” Bran looks at him with a strange, distant kind of sympathy. “You were right to do it. Cersei would have killed her.”

Immediately Jaime can feel many sets of eyes lock onto him. Tyrion in particular whips his head around noticeably, almost comically stunned. But he can’t turn to look. Every muscle in his body has suddenly frozen and he cannot move at all.

“You could not find a way away from Cersei. There was nowhere else in the world you wanted to be but by Brienne’s side. But you feared what your sister would do to her. Once Cersei was crowned, there was nothing to stop her from doing whatever she liked. You could not rein her in any longer, could not keep people safe from her, or keep her safe from herself. You couldn’t even turn her away from your bed, not when a Queen can take what she wants, and has The Mountain to take it for her.”

How can he know all of this? Things he had not told another living soul, so secret he had scarcely told himself? Jaime’s jaw clenches, biting his tongue painfully and his face burns. He would shout at the boy to shut up, to stop revealing him to these strangers, but he cannot speak a single word. 

“Your life descended into a nightmare and the only light in your world was Brienne of Tarth. Your last chance for honor, your heart’s twin, your hero. Had you died charging the dragon outside Highgarden, hers would have been the last name on your lips. Brienne.”

Jaime’s eyes squeeze shut at that. Gods, he had almost forgotten it, that terrible moment. Made himself forget. Drowning, defeated, his only comfort that Brienne was far away and safe. He had wished with all his being at that moment that he could see her one last time.

Bran’s voice drones relentlessly on, showing him no mercy.

“You came to the North to fight at her side, and she left without you. You know why. She’s figured you out. Once she called you a man of honor, but she has finally realized you have none. It was only a matter of time. You’re an aging, one-armed swordsman of no use to anyone. The stupidest Lannister. Who would want you now?”

Jaime tastes a tinge of iron in his mouth and realizes he’s bitten his tongue until it bleeds. All these are his own fears spoken back to him with terrible authority, each one a mortal wound. The boy has stripped him of his armor, his skin, so that his very soul lies exposed to the air.

Somehow, after a long minute of silence, he manages to speak. “Funny, I thought you were a Stark. The flayed man is more of a Bolton emblem.” He forces a bitter smile at his own dark joke. “Do you know what I’m thinking now, then?”

Still Bran has no expression. “I am not a mind reader. I only see. I see all there is and all that was and all that could be. But anyone could know what you are thinking if they truly cared to look. It’s what you are always thinking. How to protect what’s left of your family. How to protect Brienne. I cannot tell you that. Knowing what’s to come will not help you, Kingslayer.”

_ But it’s possible, _ Jaime concludes.  _ He does not say otherwise, only that he won’t tell me how.  _

He takes in the rest of their company, focused on him. The Stark girls stare at him with a combination of surprise and dismay, their bannermen with open confusion. Jaime tastes the blood on his tongue and takes several deep breaths, trying to master himself. He will not break in front of the Starks.

But what can he possibly say now? Sansa and Arya are not going to keep him at Winterfell if he does not surrender something. And he must stay in Winterfell now, if what Bran says is true. 

The boy may have the eyes of an old man, but he is so  _ young _ still. Five-and-ten, perhaps six? Older than Tommen when he had jumped from the King’s tower, of the age Joffrey had been when he died gurgling and choking at Jaime’s feet. They should all have been playing “Come into my Castle” in this godswood, not planning a war. But Jaime had been no older when he killed a king. No one stays innocent for long in this world.

In the end he knows what he must do, the only thing he could do to prove his sincerity to the young Starks - give them the truth. The thing they all suspect, if they don’t already know, if Bran has not already told them.

Hells, he might as well have it all out now. What pride does he have left? He would not beg mercy from anyone alive, but he owes it to Bran Stark to give him the truth, face to face.

“All right,” Jaime raises his voice at last, not quite looking at any of them, feeling not quite in his body as he speaks from his heart. “To you and all these witnesses, I offer my confession. I was the one who pushed Bran Stark from the window of the First Keep, years ago. He was climbing the outside of the building, I know not why, and he looked in a window and saw Cersei and I making love. So I pushed him from the tower. I did  **not** send the assassin afterwards. I’m told that was Joffrey.”

He pauses at this, rubbing at the back of his neck thoughtfully. Dimly he can hear the buzzing of voices around him, murmuring. Then he looks Bran in the face. “I had no real wish to harm you. I only thought to protect Cersei and our children. They would have been immediately executed by King Robert, had you told anyone of what you had seen. But I did regret it. You were an innocent, a child. Perhaps I only really understood what I had done when I became a cripple myself.” At this he raises the stump of his arm. “This same pain I inflicted on a child, who deserved it far less than I. I am sorry for it. It was a terrible thing, and if I could go back to that moment – I would probably do it again, to be honest. To protect Joffrey and Tommen and Myrcella, if I could. I would have done anything Cersei asked of me then, no matter how foul… because I loved her. I loved them all. But they’re all dead now, and you’re alive, if that makes any difference to you. And I must live with the things I’ve done.”

Jaime looks at the rest of the assembled crowd, the Stark sisters and their bannermen, Tyrion, the Stark Guards. “Punish me for it if you must. But I have been honest with you since I arrived – I do mean to fight at your side in this war. I don’t expect us to like each other. Only allow me to make amends in some way. Allow me to stay. I will fight for the North. I will fight for the living in any way I can. I will fight for Brienne. If there is any way to save her life, I will do it. I will swear this by the Seven or by any gods you worship. When the war is ended, if my sins are not redeemed, I will face the punishment then.”

There are decidedly angry mutterings around him, and it may be that he has made a dreadful mistake. But there is no turning back now. Jaime watches only the youngest Stark, and waits to see what his sentence will be.

Bran tips his head to one side, as though appraising the quality of a particularly complicated cut of stone, and stares at him with eyes that look right through skin and flesh to the very bone. Then he says:

“You are forgiven.”

At those three words the ground shifts beneath him, and Jaime has to work to keep his feet. He stares back at the boy in mute confusion.

Arya puts her hand on her brother’s shoulder and crouches down to his eye level. She is trying to be gentle, but her outrage overpowers her affection for her brother; she sounds angry. “Bran, I know you’re… different now, but you must have some feelings left. He crippled you. All you have suffered--”

Bran finishes her sentence with disinterest. “—was necessary. And not all his doing. Littlefinger played a part, Joffrey another, and Theon as well. The part that was his, he has paid for. I have  _ watched _ . From this heart tree, I have watched it all. His whole life. Everything happened as it was meant to, Arya. I was meant to become what I am, and you what you are. We were all meant to endure what we have endured, so that we might be standing here today exactly as we are.”

That is a disconcerting thought. Jaime doesn’t much like it. Arya looks even less pleased. It is only because Bran so rarely speaks so much that she does not interrupt him, and he goes on.  

“The part of me that was Brandon Stark is angry, it is true. But it is not for the three-eyed raven to judge, only to  _ see _ . And Bran, Bran who climbed, Bran who ran and played here at Winterfell… Bran is home again. And he forgives you, Jaime Lannister. By his own free choice, he forgives you.”

There could be no more effective way to disarm him than this; by these few words all the defenses around his wounded heart fall to nothing. Forgiveness. He would never have asked for it, so certain was he it would be refused. Now to have it is a relief he could not have imagined, something he had no idea he had wanted so much. 

At the same time it shakes him deeply. He will have a great deal to live up to now.

Bran knows it, too. In a rather lordly manner, he commands him just as Jaime had once commanded his own soldiers. “You have still a part to play. Winterfell will need you, when the war reaches our walls, and I have a task for you. I will call upon you to serve when the time comes. With no warning or explanation, and you must obey without question. Will you do that, Jaime Lannister? Will you serve?”

What other answer could he give? Jaime fights to steady his voice and speak out loudly enough for all to hear. “Yes. I will serve. I swear it by the Seven.” He crosses his fist over his heart as he had done in the Kingsguard, to acknowledge an order.  _ His own free choice.  _ For all he knows Bran Stark will order him to jump from the ramparts of Winterfell, and he will be sworn to do it. But it feels right. A debt is owed, whatever the boy says, and Lannisters always pay their debts. With their own lives, if necessary.

At this he becomes aware that the other Lannister present is there at his elbow, looking up at him dumbfounded. Just what Tyrion is thinking now, Jaime cannot quite read from his expression, but he thinks besides the surprise and confusion his brother is perhaps a little bit proud of him. 

Bran nods to them both. “That is all, then. You may go.”

“Wait,” Arya Stark insists, rising to her feet hurriedly. “We haven’t decided anything.”

“He stays,” Sansa Stark says immediately. Whether by Bran’s endorsement, his predictions or revelations, her mind is made up. “He swore an oath to Bran. For now he stays.”

Jaime turns away from them all, and leaves the sisters arguing beneath the heart tree. He avoids his brother’s grasp as well, brushing past him and breaking through the row of Northmen surrounding them. He may have sworn a boon to the youngest Stark, and an oath to Catelyn, but he is no bannerman, and he has had enough Starks for one day.

He strides rapidly as he can without actually breaking into a run, hurrying over the snowy path well ahead of whoever is accompanying him back. If he could leave behind the words the boy had said by running he would sprint the length of Westeros, instead of hiding away at Winterfell. But it’s too late now, the dark thoughts he has tried to outpace have caught him, left his open wounds exposed for all to see. He doesn’t know if what he’s feeling is anger or fear or hurt or regret, or maybe all of it together. It makes him want to run back to the broken tower and pummel things with his sword until he is too exhausted to feel anything.

If he could count on the Great Hall being empty he might go in search of mead, or preferably something stronger. More than anything else in the world right now he’d like a good, long, powerfully annihilating drink, something to destroy all sense and feeling for at least the next day or so. But there is the risk of meeting thoseese Stark bannermen there, or Tyrion, or anyone else who’d just witnessed him being flayed alive by Bran Stark, and he’d really rather be actually skinned than see any of them right now.

Instead he rushes straight back to his quarters in the great keep and locks the door behind him. He busies himself building a fire for a while, and then with tending to his sword, burnishing the Valyrian steel until it gleams. Trying not to think, trying to exhaust his racing mind and forget the things that Bran had said.

_ You still have a part to play. We were all meant to endure what we have endured, so that we can be standing here exactly as we are. _

As he commonly does in times of distress, he puts his heart elsewhere. He thinks again of those afternoons in the gardens with Brienne. Brienne when she still seemed to actually like him. She may be the only one who ever truly has. The two of them sitting in the sunshine, him relaxed and her awkward as ever, but more at ease than he can recall ever seeing her. Wearing the silly tunics and linen trousers he had found for her, which were actually rather flattering, that matched her piercing blue eyes. He remembers wanting to kiss her. At the time he considered it a kind of madness, some momentary impulse surely due to an excess of happiness in being home again after their ordeal. But it wasn’t momentary at all, it had lingered, a sweet sort of presence he had carried with him ever since. And he certainly hadn’t felt that same contentment anywhere else in King’s Landing, not after that, not in the White Sword Tower or the Red Keep or even with Cersei, not ever again. The truth was those summery afternoons before Brienne went away were the last time he had been truly happy.

It comforts him to think on, allows him to slowly relax. But before long, Bran Stark’s prediction for Brienne is echoing in his mind.  _ More than likely the North will be her death. _

Disquieted, Jaime abruptly sets aside his blade and pulls off the golden hand, rubbing his aching stump. He curses this ridiculous hand Cersei had given him. More of an ornament than a limb, no good for anything useful, heavy and painful to wear. He sets it aside too.

The things the Stark boy had said… there is no way for him to know those things. He could not have guessed them or learned them from anyone but Jaime himself. Which means the green-seeing is real, just as dragons are real, and White Walkers too. And that means that Brienne may die.

_ I will not allow it, _ he tells himself.  _ Whatever else happens, Brienne will survive this war. I will make sure of it. _

* * *

Jon’s regiment returns that evening, just as the last streaks of weak sunlight clear from the sky. The crowds littering the courtyard let out a series of cheers, and the soldiers stamping in call back to them and mingle with the crowd in a disorganized muddle quite unlike the orderly parades of King’s Landing. The tumult can be heard anywhere in Winterfell, even deep within the hold in a windowless servant’s quarters where Jaime sits beside the fire. When he hears the noise and understands what it means, he grabs his overcoat and finds his way outside, his heart in his throat. The golden hand he leaves behind.

When he gets to the courtyard he stays at the balcony, gripping the wooden railing with his remaining hand. It’s bitterly cold, the temperature falling by the minute with the last of the daylight. He has no gloves and the wooden bannister is so cold it hurts to touch, but he’s starting to get used to it.

There are too many people and no order to it; even Lord Snow cannot be identified in this madness. Still, he scans the crowd for one helmet towering over the others, for one blonde amongst a sea of bearded brunettes. There’s no sign of her. No ludicrously tall figures, no blue armor, no blue-eyed burly lady knights. No Brienne.

But the soldiers are still trundling in, and there is no reason to panic. He will not worry until he can see Jon Snow. Brienne will stay close to him, out of her duty to the Starks. If for some reason he has not returned, she would in all likelihood be at his side. Jon or Podrick, if either of them are here and she is not, then… no, he will not consider that possibility. Of course she will return, there is no other option.  _ Bran Stark said that I might save her life. She has to return, otherwise I will never have the chance. _

Jaime looks up along the railing and finds one other person waiting there, scanning the soldiers as carefully as he. Sansa Stark, pale and ghostly in her dark nightdress, her hair down and face tense. He would have thought she would be happier to welcome back their forces, but of course it does not bode well that they have returned, not well at all. If they had retaken ground they would have left forces to hold it, not draw them back to where they started.

He hopes that this is merely a repositioning and not a retreat. But he is not that hopeful.

There she is. The Maid of Tarth walks at the very back of the retinue, Podrick Payne faithful at her side. Even under armor, a helmet, and a layer of light snow, she is immediately recognizable. Her stiff shoulders and her awkward gait give her away. She leads her horse patiently around the milling crowd and Jaime can see that she is tired and drawn but uninjured. Something in her countenance tells him they have suffered grave losses, but she is determined not to reveal it to the welcoming crowd.

Jaime knows all of this intimately, just from the weary way she holds herself, how she looks over the refugees, the way she strokes her horse reassuringly. When he sees her, he is flooded with such relief that it is startling. The world has righted itself again. Even if Brienne will not come to him, still she is here, she is safe. They will be under the same roof again, and he will not have to lie in the dark and wonder what has become of her.

He can admit it now, to himself at least. He knows why he has stayed in this gods-forsaken place, why he really came in the first place. He came for Brienne. Oh, he was going to join the fight one way or another, and he had wanted to come North and make peace with the Starks, but he came to Winterfell for  **her** . If she had been at Eastwatch or Karhold or the fucking boglands he would have gone there instead, and told some other story to explain it to himself. He would have followed her anywhere.

He watches her all the way across the courtyard, snow alighting unnoticed on his ungloved hand and on his face. When the lady knight and her squire fall out of view, he looks up again and finds Sansa Stark watching him closely. Then the Lady of Winterfell gathers her cloak around her nightdress and rushes suddenly inside, most likely to dress and to meet with her half-brother. Jaime remains for some time, long after Sansa has disappeared inside.

Sansa could easily report to her sworn sword all the things that Bran had said. Hells, Bran could have told Brienne himself, at any time. Could that be why she had left him here alone? His throat tightens at the thought. That makes all too much sense. Bran said he had spoken to her. He can imagine Brienne learning of his feelings for her and volunteering for the front rather than face him. If anyone would rather go to war than hurt a friend, it would be Brienne.

This is surely preferable to the possibility that she has turned against him entirely, but it doesn’t feel better. And hadn’t Bran said that she had figured him out? Was the boy repeating something Brienne herself had told him, or exposing his own fears that he had lost her regard, which had meant so much to him? There is no way to know until he speaks to her, and he is suddenly apprehensive about what will happen then.

After that, there are no further glimpses of Brienne. Jaime stays awhile longer, watching the stars come out over the slowly dispersing crowd. He is shivering by the time he finally turns back to the warmer halls of Winterfell and walks slowly back to her room.

It was only a slim chance that she might be there, and briefly his pulse races when he finds the door open and the fire stoked. But it isn’t Brienne reclaiming her bed after all. His bed. He supposes it must be his, now.

It’s Tyrion. Looking rather like a child caught sneaking a sweet from the kitchens.

His brother greets him cheerfully, clearly trying to sound a lot more confident than he feels. “So, the Starks. That was… unpleasant. But, I suppose it could have been worse.”

Jaime waits to see if he is angry, but it doesn’t come. He leaves the door open as he enters. “I’m not sure how.”

“Do you want to talk?” his little brother offers.

“No.” Jaime sits on the bed, staring into the fire.

Tyrion walks into his line of vision, holding an impressively dusty amber bottle. “Want to get roaringly drunk off this fine vintage I borrowed from the Starks’ secret Winter-is-coming stash of brandy?”

Jaime relents. “Yes. I absolutely do.”

 

* * *

 

About an hour later, after emptying the first bottle and well into the second, Jaime finally speaks up.

“Answer me truly.” He just manages not to slur his words, but only by speaking very slowly. “Did Cersei ever really love me?”

Tyrion plainly stalls, scratching his beard. He looks at the ceiling, and the floor, and the fire, and finally back at his brother. “Maybe when you were both young... But never, I’m afraid, the way you loved her.”

Jaime nods slightly, and takes a long drink from the bottle.

“I’m sorry,” says Tyrion with genuine remorse.

“I asked,” Jaime says simply.

They don’t say much more than this, that night. But it’s a start.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brienne's back! I promised she wouldn't be gone for long, and we'll hear more from her next chapter. We've also got some battle planning to do, some swordplay, and another major shock for Jaime...


	4. Lovelorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime writes an important letter, Tyrion tries to be helpful, Sam tries not to die, Brienne has a lot on her mind, and Jaime has an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel I should warn you all, Tormund appears in this fic and is into Brienne. But be assured that there is no love triangle in the making here and Brienne is 0% interested in him. This is a Jaime/Brienne fic.
> 
> Many many thanks to honorata and tupelosong for your help with this chapter!

The dawning day finds Jaime hunched over the rickety table in his quarters, frowning intently at the parchment in front of him. Every now and again he pauses his careful scratching to set down his quill and shake out his cramping fingers. He’s been at this most of the night. Back in King’s Landing he could leave it to others to compose his letters and simply add a (careful, crooked) signature, but this letter he must compose himself, with his own words.

It takes him hours to do this with his left hand. He looks at the result now, and grimaces. A simple letter, and even with all of his concentration and slow effort the result is little better than a child’s scrawl. His father would have boxed his ears for this muddle when he was a child himself. Tywin would have kept him at this desk until it was flawless, forgoing sleep and meals to get it right. There’s no time for that now; with preparations for war this missive must go out today. When they are under siege, all the ravens will stay away, or else be shot down by the enemy.

Jaime spent a lot of time as a boy learning to write properly. He spent many long hours at a desk carefully making his letters, and more often than not they came out upside-down and turned around again. It took a very long time and a lot of stern reprobations from Tywin to train his hand to do it correctly – successfully, he had thought. Now it seems the _left_ hand never learned. It’s all back to the beginning again. The only thing that works is scrawling one draft with many corrections and then copying it very slowly on a perfect page, more like drawing than writing. It should be simple, but if he does not pay careful attention he will ruin another piece of parchment with nonsense words. He must review each individual line carefully to be sure he hasn’t mucked it up.

It would be faster, and produce a better result, if he approached someone for help. He supposes if worst comes to worst, he could call on Tyrion to complete the letter. He has already provided the parchment, and the ink, and the quills. His brother wouldn’t mind it, and surely it would take him no time at all to convey his message. Instead, Jaime has forgone sleep and stubbornly pushed through to the finish, despite his aching hand.

Usually it is the missing hand that hurts, a burning sensation from the stump at the end of his right arm that comes when he is weary or when he has not protected it from the cold. It comes less and less these days, but feels like his fingers are held over a fire – never mind they aren’t there anymore. A cramp in his real left hand from actual labor is at least a change of pace.

Almost on cue there is a knock at the door, which he knows will be Tyrion. Jaime wills himself to finish the last line quickly, watching closely for mistakes. Meanwhile his brother lets himself in, brushing a light layer of snow from his clothes as he greets him. They will break their fast together, as they have taken most meals together in the last week. There is still a lingering awkwardness between them, but it is dissipating slowly.

“Will you be stealing my research assistant again?” asks Tyrion as he approaches the table. “Our scholarly friend talks quite excitedly of your practice sessions. I would not have expected to see Sam Tarly in a hurry to swing a sword. Although an oncoming army of wights is highly motivating, I have to say. I wouldn’t mind a few lessons myself.”

“Might have to forgo that today. The good hand’s no good,” Jaime says, stopping to press the palm of it against the edge of the table, trying to massage it. Yet another thing he can’t do. The golden hand might actually have been useful for that, but he isn’t wearing it now. Alone in his room he leaves it off, and only to go out does he wind a new bandage for his stump before strapping the false hand on.

“Do I get to read this missive before it goes out?” Tyrion inquires. “You’ve been very mysterious about it.”

“Just a moment,” Jaime tells him. He scrawls a signature on the letter before he hands it over, something he has a little more practice with. Though he does slow down a bit to add his title, one he has never used before:

 

_Jaime Lannister_

_Lord of Casterly Rock_

 

Tyrion takes the pages and settles into a chair opposite him. Jaime watches his expression carefully as he reads, absently wrapping a new bandage around his stump.

When he comes to the end, the dwarf raises an eyebrow. “You do realize you don’t actually _have_ Casterly Rock?”

“A mere technicality,” Jaime says back lightly.

“I see,” Tyrion says. He starts reading the letter again.

This is a sore point, Jaime knows. He may never have wanted to be a lord or to rule their family home, but (he is realizing) Tyrion very much does. What’s more, he would be good at it; far better than Jaime would be. That he was never given the opportunity is one of the many, many slights he has endured from his own family, for the crime of being born a dwarf.

At the moment, Casterly Rock is held by the Unsullied, under command of Danaerys Targaryen and her Hand. The Rock is Tyrion’s by possession, captured by his forces. Of course, Jaime had lured him into taking it as a maneuver to claim the much more valuable Highgarden. But that he had masterminded the exchange doesn’t necessarily require Tyrion to give it back. Jaime’s letter claims their family seat by inheritance, raising the issue of birthright, and by support of his bannermen, who have accepted neither Tyrion nor Danaerys as their liege. It’s unfair, and he knows it. He forfeited his inheritance when he joined the Kingsguard. He can only hope his brother will understand his purpose here.

Tyrion sets the letter aside thoughtfully. “It’s a good plan,” he says, nodding slowly. “I think it will work.” His expression is carefully neutral, but his eyes don’t quite make it back up to look him in the face.

“Casterly Rock should be yours.” Jamie leans forward and makes sure to meet his brother’s gaze. The peace between them is hard-won and he means to keep it; on this he will be as sincere and earnest as he ever is. “Father should have given it to you as soon as I joined the Kingsguard. You were next and it should have been yours.”

“Well, he didn’t.” Tyrion smiles tightly. “He never stopped considering you his heir, and since he never named me, and you are no longer Kingsguard… well, you’re within your rights to claim it.”

“For a purpose, as you can see. You're only lending it to me,” Jaime promises him firmly. “When this is over, it will be yours. I’ve given it up twice now, it won’t trouble me to do it again. Anyway you and I both know which of us is more likely to survive this war.”

“I wouldn’t lay money on it,” Tyrion protests, a little more playfully. “I find myself in mortal danger rather more often than any peace-loving dwarf should.”

Jaime is not joking back, not this time. “You are my heir, and I’ll tell that to anyone who’ll listen and everyone else who won’t. And when the war is ended, if it happens we’re both still standing, I’ll name it yours just the same. I’ll swear it by the Seven, if there are any septs around.”

“No need,” Tyrion assures him. Just the same, he has relaxed noticeably at this promise. “I know you mean what you say, and you’ve never wanted to rule anything if you could help it. Though I’ve never quite figured out why.”

Jaime expertly dodges this subject by making an observation he has been meaning to share with his brother for some time. “You have a talent, Tyrion. You were a brilliant Hand of the King, by far the best in King’s Landing in all the years I lived there. It should have been you running Casterly Rock long ago, and I mean to correct that. Father was a fool not to rely on you, and I was a fool not to insist on it. You’ll probably be running a great deal more than the Rock before long, but I can at least be the one to give you that.”

Tyrion looks taken aback. It could be that no one has said this to him before; certainly no one in his family ever has. Jaime watches his expression change from surprised to touched, his eyes shining briefly. Then his brother clears his throat suddenly and climbs out of his chair, straightening his jacket and quickly regaining his composure.

“Yes, well. Let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it.” Tyrion claps his hands together and rubs them, a bit more cheerful now. “Shall we find some breakfast?  And I’ll accompany you to the rookery.” 

* * *

 

As they leave the rookery and cross the balcony surrounding the courtyard, Jaime notices a flash of gold up on the ramparts where only the guards should walk. It’s like a shadow, but yellow-gold rather than dim-grey. A distinctly un-Northern color, and it captures his attention immediately. As soon as he tries to look closer, it’s gone. Tyrion doesn’t seem to see it, or maybe it doesn’t interest him.

Jaime might have gone to investigate the unusual sighting, but something else captures his attention instead. He suddenly stops short.

There she is, in the inner practice yard. Brienne of Tarth. Looming over the other soldiers exercising there, her broad shoulders made even more ungainly by the shaggy fur pauldrons covering them. The falling snow alights on her back and shimmers there, crystalline.

He crosses to the railing and holds there, watching. The tall blonde warrior swims in and out of a crowd beneath him, but she is ever easy to track. She stands out. Even when she slouches and slumps and tries to blend in, she would still stand out. She has Pod with her, of course. He follows at her heels like an eager puppy, and seems to be preparing for a spar himself, clumsily strapping on equipment while Brienne speaks to the other soldiers.

Jaime cannot shake the feeling that something has changed about Brienne’s appearance, though he can’t identify what it is. He has such a clear image of her in his mind eye -- can picture Brienne exactly as she was the day they had parted at Harrenhal, in that ridiculous pink gown. He can picture even more clearly Brienne at Riverrun, in the armor he had given her. They had spoken only a few minutes, but the memory is ever sharper in his mind for all the times he has revisited it.

What is it that’s so different about her here in Winterfell? Her hair is longer perhaps. It’s hard to tell from the way she wears it, pushed back from her face with just the hint of curls flattened down. She is even paler in the winter than she had been in the autumn sun, in all those hours and days on the road with him. But those are trivial details, and he is looking for something more fundamental.

“Jaime,” his brother says warningly behind him. “You’re staring.”

He ignores Tyrion. He has not looked on Brienne in a long time, and he will make the most of it. She stalks around the other fighters and they clear a space for her deferentially, and there is a swagger to her walk that he has never seen before. _They respect her_ , that’s the change.

She sweeps across the practice yard with new confidence. These young men look up to her for approval and she is stern and commanding in return. The bulky furs and the cape make her look lordly; she wears them well. It suits her, all of this. In the South she had always looked faintly ridiculous amongst the armored knights. Here in the North, she looks magnificent.

 _This is where she belongs_ , Jaime thinks. With the northeners, who are hardened and value survival above silly notions of courtly beauty. He did the right thing, sending her after Sansa. It was the honorable thing, that much had been obvious, but it was also the best thing for Brienne, and that he had been less sure of.

Jaime is relieved to know he has at least made one right decision in his life.

Meanwhile his brother is smirking at him in a manner Jaime finds thoroughly obnoxious. “Don’t say it,” he says pre-emptively. “Not one word.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Tyrion says in a solemn tone, but he keeps smiling.

His younger brother has not pressed him for details about Brienne after the revelations in the Godswood – though clearly it pains Tyrion not to ask. There have been many arched eyebrows and trailed-off sentences in the last few days. Thus far Jaime has not encouraged this curiosity.

But it does not bother him as much as he thought it would, Tyrion knowing. It is comforting in a way. And it does seem to have endeared him to his brother again, though he does not entirely understand why. It may be that he is simply relieved to see Jaime lovesick over someone other than their sister.

Below them Brienne squares off with Podrick Payne. The young squire readies a wooden sword and nods, ready to begin. It seems his idea to pair the two of them in King’s Landing has also borne out splendidly – they have been fixed to each other’s side since Jaime has arrived at Winterfell, and young Podrick looks up to his lady knight with a worshipful devotion most pleasing to see.

Tyrion laughs. “Poor Pod. I’m astounded that he doesn’t faint dead away, actually. When he was my squire, a stiff wind might have blown him over. Your friend seems to have toughened him up quite a bit.”

Then Jaime is smiling too. Brienne is merciless; she knocks poor Podrick down again and again. The young man is hardly back on his feet before she’s raining down blows once more. Tyrion must have the right of it; she’s determined to whip her young squire into shape before the real battle begins.

He winces at a particularly loud crash of her sword against her squire’s padded side. That one must hurt. Jaime knows from experience how powerful those hits are. Even looking at her up close, with the bulk of her looming over you, her strength still takes you by surprise.  If anything, he would say she has gotten even better since he saw her last. She’s been drilling her footwork, he would guess. He wonders who around here would be good enough to give her adequate competition. Not many, that’s for certain. He would have been an ideal sparring partner once, but… He glances down at his golden hand regretfully, and just as quickly shoves the thought out of his mind.  It’s enough just to watch. For now.

Again he wonders how it is he will be able to protect Brienne in the coming war, the way Bran has said he must. If it had been Sansa who needed his protection, he might have known how to proceed. He has spent his whole life protecting his sister, such things come naturally to him. But Brienne is different. He can’t imagine what she would need of him that she could not already do herself. The real danger must not be in battle, something that does not require his sword arm.

All he can think to do is be watchful, be prepared to intervene when he can.

“How long has this been going on?” Tyrion speaks up, interrupting his thoughts. He’s not talking about Pod, or swordfighting, of course.

Jaime doesn’t take his eyes off her. “… I don’t know. A long time, I think.”

“When did you know? That you were in love with her?”

Jaime shrugs. Just now? All along? He’s known for some time that he has strong feelings for Brienne – that she is important to him, that he has missed her terribly. But these feelings are so different from what he had felt for Cersei that to call it by the same word feels unfair. Is it still love if it is not dangerous, wild, uncontrollable? Brienne does not make him anxious or wretched or out of control – she puts him at ease, makes him peaceful, hopeful. There is a sweetness there, a gentleness he hadn’t known himself capable of that had not shown itself until he met her. Something that only exists in the strange alchemy between the two of them. He hadn’t known what to call it. But of course that’s what it is, he knows now; this, too, is love.

 “She came to see me at Riverrun,” he decides to say. “She rode up to the Lannister camp, all alone with just Podrick and an enemy banner. My men nearly attacked her. She could have been killed. I should have been furious but instead I was… glad. I was pleased to see her, even happy. And believe me, it was not a happy situation – I was sent to resolve a siege, and it was a botch of a mess. There was no good resolution, the Tullys insisting on being slaughtered and Cersei insisting I finish it. I could tighten the siege and starve them out, or have the bloodbath everyone seemed to want. And in the midst of all that – here comes Brienne of Tarth, riding up in Stark colors, wanting to go inside the castle for some foolish reason.”

Jaime becomes much more animated, gesturing with his flesh hand over the blonde knight currently battering Tyrion’s former squire. “Just imagine it. Me her sworn enemy for a dozen reasons and she walks through a siege line to have a chat. She trusted me to ensure her safety, me of all people. I should have sent her on, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to speak with her after so long. Seeing her was…”

He trails off here. He doesn’t have the words to describe it. That whole mangled mess of emotions that he could not safely acknowledge, feelings that swelled in intensity any time she came near to him. He found himself stepping back from her just to keep his head. And she had been so focused and decorous and all the things he would expect of her and yet – and yet! – something about the way she looked at him was _different,_ fascinatingly so. It made him feel wonderful, the way she was looking at him. He honestly could have stood there for days, just looking at her, and her looking back.

It’s too difficult to explain. He shakes it off and tries to move on.

“I struck a deal with her despite that it ran against all good sense. She wanted to recruit the Blackfish for Sansa, so I let her in to see him.” Jaime shakes his head again, slowly. Even as he speaks, the situation is becoming clearer to him, as though a fog is lifting away. “I didn’t particularly _want_ to kill the Blackfish if I could help it, and I was happy to let her have him. But I think I would have given her anything she asked for. Lucky thing she didn’t ask for _my_ army to help her, I might have abandoned Riverrun altogether.”

“At any rate, I knew right away it had been a mistake. As soon as she disappeared into the Keep I knew that stubborn old arse would never listen to her. He was going to insist on dying and then she would insist on dying with him, because she serves Catelyn Stark and never mind Cat was dead by then.”

“I didn’t wait to see the result. Instead I persuaded Edmure to let us in. Made some threats.” Jaime grimaces at the thought. He may be perfectly willing to do whatever’s necessary to protect the people most important to him, but he wouldn’t be particularly proud to have them know how he had done it. The idea of Brienne hearing him threatening Edmure’s infant child makes him cringe inwardly. “I told myself it was to please Cersei and to get back to King’s Landing, and I honestly believed that was true. But then the Blackfish refused to go down peacefully even after his nephew let us into the keep and he and many of his men were slaughtered. When I heard that I was in a panic. If Brienne had been one of those soldiers I don’t know what I might have done.”

Jaime swallows hard, remembering that. He had been heavy with dread and worry, too much so to look for her himself. He might have turned over a body and found… he makes himself stop thinking on it. “I was standing on the ramparts in the dark and waiting for my men to tell me if any of the Blackfish’s slain companions was a tall blonde woman when I saw her. Out on the water, her and Podrick, in this stupid little boat. They had escaped somehow.”

He looks at his brother, bright with dawning realization. “That’s why I had done it, used Edmure to take the keep. It was because Brienne was inside, and if we sacked the Keep, she would have been killed. It didn’t occur to me until afterwards that she was the reason. Anyway, standing on the wall, I saw her and she saw me. She raised her hand to me and then she turned away and they were rowing away on the river. And I knew right then, clear as anything, that I wanted nothing more in all the world than to run after her. Just jump off the parapet and run down the bank until I caught up with their rowboat. I didn’t know what I would do when I got there, I just knew I wanted to go to her very badly. If I could, I would have left behind everything and followed her.”

Tyrion interrupts his thoughts. “Why didn’t you go with her? I mean, aside from the army at your back.”

Jaime shrugs again. How to explain? “Look,” he says.

They look back at the practice yard. Brienne flips Podrick over her shoulder when he makes a foolish charge. The lad lands flat on his back and stares up at the sky, dazed, as she orders him up for another spar.

“I’m no use to her,” he says quietly. He thumps his golden hand against the railing they are leaning against to emphasize his point.

Tyrion looks at him for a long beat, his face increasingly sorrowful. “I’ve heard – and this is only second-hand, you understand – but supposedly there are love affairs where a man and a woman simply care for each other, and don’t have to be ‘of use’. No manipulation, no demands, no secrets. It’s not exactly the Lannister way, of course…”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that, would I?” Jaime darkens again. “It turns out that I may not know what a love affair should be like. But I know Brienne. She wants to be a true knight, not a lady in a castle. I could only help her do that by sending her away. With my one hand I could just about be her squire, and she already has one of those, as you can see,” he says, nodding towards Podrick. “She can hardly prove her honor as a knight and find a place for herself while hauling about the most dishonorable man in the kingdom. So I stayed with Cersei every time. Cersei needed me – Brienne didn’t.”

“It must have been difficult,” Tyrion says gently. “To keep letting her go. Trying to keep both of them safe.”

“I don’t recommend it,” Jaime murmurs.

They watch awhile longer in silence.

“What are you going to do?” Tyrion finally asks.

He doesn’t know. “Probably nothing.”

“Jaime—“ 

“Spare me the speech. I will be happy enough to have her speaking to me again. Even that may be more than I can hope for.”

“You haven’t talked since she got back?”

“Not directly.” He had seen her several times in fact, but always in big, crowded places, and never alone. Podrick and usually one or the other of the Stark sisters is always with her, or else some of the wilding soldiers who she had fought with for the past few weeks. He’s certain this is deliberate.

“But you think she’s avoiding you? Are you sure? There are a few things going on at the moment, you know.” Tyrion gestures widely at the entire Keep, readying for war.

He shakes his head. “Something is different. I know her, Tyrion. She’s keeping her distance for a reason. I just don’t know what it is.”

At least, he isn’t sure. Until he can get her alone and talk to her, he will not know for certain. Until he can ask her why she would leave without saying goodbye – leave him sick abed without a word and be gone for weeks and weeks, behavior so unlike her that he would not have believed it – and ask her what he had done to earn such treatment. He should just march into the great yard right now and demand to speak with her, but he won’t.

The truth is, he isn’t certain that he wants to know. Through all that had happened in the last year, one comfort to him had been the thought that one person in the world still believed in his honor, even after everything. Now it may no longer be true.

Nothing here has gone as he had planned, not his journey north, or joining the fight against the White Walkers. Cersei died, Brienne left, and nobody wants him here. He hadn’t been expecting a hero’s welcome – well, not exactly – but he certainly hadn’t expected _this_. It’s rattled him enough to put off the confrontation that is surely coming, where he will learn what Brienne really thinks of him now. If she is angry with him, if she has given up on him. He thinks it goes back to the Dragonpit. She saw him with Cersei, and she was – he does not know. Disappointed? Disgusted? In all these years he has never been ashamed of what he had with Cersei, but now Brienne has seen them together and somehow that is different. He fears he has fallen in her estimation and it pains him.

In the yard below, she gives a hand up to Podrick and lectures him very seriously on his sword grip. It looks as though their practice session is nearing its end, Jaime notes regretfully. After this she’ll disappear into the inner keep and he won’t see her again for a day or more.

“I’ve met Brienne, you know. When you first arrived we talked quite a bit.” Tyrion puts his hands behind his back and looks especially pleased with himself. “I like her. Entirely too tall to have a proper conversation with, but I like her.”

“That’s… good,” Jaime says cautiously. His brother’s enthusiasm on this subject is making him distinctly nervous.

 “Maybe I could put in a good word for you,” Tyrion suggests, and his smirk threatens to erupt into an outright grin. Tyrion looks delighted with the entire situation.

“No.” Jaime starts walking determinedly towards the Great Hall.

“Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you,” his brother laughs behind him.

“Shh!” Jaime glances down at the yard to be sure no one can tell what they are discussing. “Stop enjoying this.”

“But you have no idea how enjoyable this is! My big brother, mooning over a girl. I never thought I’d see this day. Please tell me I can help you woo her. I write excellent poetry. Does she like limericks?”

Tyrion continues in this vein as they resume their walk to the great hall, passing around the training yard, trying to think of words that rhyme with Tarth. So far he has hearth, earth, forth, and mirth, which are terrible rhymes, and Jaime has to work not to find him amusing. He could go on like this all day, Tyrion, trying to distract him from his worries. So long as he doesn’t actually interfere, Jaime can tolerate this kind of teasing. He has rather missed it, it turns out.

On the far side of the yard they encounter a fur-clad man with fiery red hair; a wildling, in the flesh. He's never seen one of those before, and can't help but be curious.

Jaime has been as disdainful of the wildlings as anyone south of the Wall, but he knows they have proven to be useful allies, and they can hardly be choosy about those now. He’ll break bread with them, if they can be persuaded to use utensils. This one he has heard a few things about, a kind of spokesman for the people beyond the wall. Not a noble -- they don't seem to have rulers or houses there. How they accomplish anything that way is a bit of a mystery to Jaime, but after what he has seen in King's Landing, it can hardly be any worse than what the Seven Kingdoms have been doing.

The red-bearded man raises an impressively furry eyebrow when he sees Jaime coming. He too has been watching the practice yard, and with a proprietary air that verges on humorous. To a Lannister it cannot help but seem odd that this wild man should be so pompous.

“Oh-ho, it’s the sisterfucker,” the ginger man says, in a boisterous tone. Apparently he's heard of him too.

Tyrion looks up at him uneasily, expecting him to be angry. But Jaime will give the wildling this; he’s the first to say it to his face. “And you’d be the bearlover, right?” he answers smoothly, intending to pass him by.

“Tormund Giantsbane. Admiring my woman?” The wildling gestures magnanimously at the yard below them. “I saw you watching.”

Jaime stops short. “Your woman?”

“The big one. She’s mine.” The ginger grins widely. “We’ll be married soon. Getting a bigger bed all ready.”

Jaime can’t help laughing at this ludicrous claim. Brienne married? To this beast? “Has anyone broken this news to the lady yet?”

Tormund seems to be trying to look imposing, which is a bit difficult, as he’s a few inches shorter. He has a decent swagger, but smells like he hasn’t considered a bath any closer than an arm’s length. “You calling me a liar?”

He has a crazed urge to say _I saw her first_ , but that isn’t the point.  “The Maid of Tarth is definitely not marrying you. You’re not remotely her type. She likes lords. Pretty ones,” he japes.

“Like you?” The wilding scoffs. “How come I haven’t seen you with her then, you know her so well?”

Jaime shrugs. He doesn’t need to prove anything to this lout, even if this last implication does sting a bit.

“Go back to the South, Sisterfucker,” Tormund says to his back. “You aren’t wanted here.”

Jaime keeps walking. He’s already well aware he is unwanted.

On the wall, again, is a flash of gold. It waves in the corner of his eye only after Brienne and Pod are out of sight, on the far end of the great courtyard, and when he turns his head to look it is gone. He could have sworn it was a person. But why would anyone be standing on the ramparts now, in this weather?

Despite only the vaguest impression of what he’s seeing, it fills him with unease.

“Poetry,” Tyrion says, catching up to him, trying to resume a lighthearted mood between them. “Trust me on this, Jaime. Even giant women like poetry.”

* * *

 

“This is a terrible idea,” Sam Tarly says, an hour later in the Broken Tower. His sword and shield droop down dejectedly in his grasp.

“This will work.” Jaime grips his practice sword in his still-stiff left hand.

“Look, Jon tried to teach me to fight. I’m hopeless. It’s no use.”

Jaime lowers his practice sword. “You’re already a good deal better than you were when we started.”

“That’s not saying very much,” Sam says, and he has a point. “It takes years of training to get good. How much can I possibly learn before we’re under attack?”

Jaime tries not to sound as though he’s said it a dozen times already. “We won’t be fighting trained swordsmen. These wights are not great thinkers and they’re not going to duel with you. Just sort of run at you and try to bite you, yes, but you won’t need any great skill to fight that. That Valyrian sword you hold puts you three steps up on anyone you face, and if you’re right about these creatures, you need only score a hit. Not a strong hit, or a particularly well executed hit. Just manage one hit with your sword, and try not to die.”

“It’s that part that worries me!” Sam does look quite concerned.

“You’ve done well at staying alive so far. Didn’t you say you killed one of those things? Then you’ve  already killed more of them than most of us.”

“That was one of them, not a dozen or more at once,” Sam protests.

“That’s what the shield is for.”

Sam makes a face at the round iron shield he holds. “Dickon always said real fighters don’t use shields.”

“Dickon’s dead.”

Sam glares. That was what it took to get a little fire from the maester-in-training. Most people are fairly easy to annoy, but one has to say something blatantly horrible to get Sam’s ire. Fortunately Jaime is good at that.

“Plenty of fighters use shields. You use whatever’s necessary. You’re not in a tourney and you’re not fighting for an audience. If you’re alive at the end of the fight, you win.” Jaime readies his sword for another volley. “Don’t worry about counter-attacking, just block me.”

“Easier said than—“ Sam get the breath knocked out of him by the next blow, which he just barely gets a shield in front of. He’s pushed back a few steps, but he doesn’t drop the shield. That’s progress.

To begin with, Sam had been little better than a dummy in a fight, and sometimes worse. His arms tired easily and he constantly lowered his shield, and a direct blow would knock it right out of his hands. But after a few sessions, he can hold up under several strong strikes in a row. He still can’t adequately predict where the blows will land when Jaime comes at him from a different direction, but he is learning. And he can train considerably longer now than he had before.

Jaime, for his part, is relieved to devote time and strategy to something unrelated to his family or his past mistakes. How to get Sam Tarly through a battle alive, that is a problem he can focus on. That’s the kind of problem he can solve, unlike everything else.

Sam remains skeptical on that point. He does, however, keep showing up. Jaime has to push and cajole him to keep trying and not give up, but still, he shows up.

After completely missing one of Jaime’s more graceful strokes, which catches him in the armored side of his considerable belly, Sam bends over and groans.

“I’ll never be as fast as you. This is hopeless.”

“Stop comparing yourself to everyone else. It’s no wonder you struggle if you’re trying to do this the same way as a man half your size. Shall I be honest? You’re fat.”

“You could be a little **less** honest, you know.” Sam looks only a little resentful. He never seems to mind insults to his person so much as insults to his friends.

“I’m serious. Look at the Clegane brothers, they were never exactly svelte, and they’re more feared than anyone. Lots of these northern soldiers are built like barrels, and they do fine. So what if you’re fat? Use it to your advantage.”

Sam looks astounded. This is not a thought that has ever occurred to him. “How would I do that?”

“You outweigh your opponents, you have bulk and mass. You won’t be fast and you won’t be nimble, but get more steady on your feet and nothing will knock you down. Learn to hold up your shield and they cannot break your defenses. That’s what we practice.”

This is something to consider. Sam takes a few more breaths, then raises his shield and sword again.

They spar a few more rounds, Jaime giving a little more force to his blows, until the sweat drips from the portly maester’s face and he can barely grip his practice sword.

 “You know, you’re not half so terrible as you said.” Sam lowers his shield and puts his hands on his knees, panting. “Are you sure you’re not just…”

“I’m nowhere near what I was.” Jaime urges him back up, eager to be back to fighting.

“That’s just it though. If you were the best, and now you’re less good, that’s still better than almost everyone. Not terrible.”

He thinks that over. “The man I sparred with at King’s Landing said a squire could take me on a good day.”

“Did he have any other reason for saying that?”

 _Continuing to be paid,_ Jaime realizes _._ “I suppose he could have exaggerated…”

“You’ll need to fight somebody better than me, if you really want to know,” Sam tells him with typical self-deprecation.

“Not until you’re better with that shield.”

The practice comes to a halt not long after, once Sam is too out of breath to complain anymore. Often Jaime will continue on with training by himself after his student is too tired to continue. Sam is usually quite talkative then, telling him tales of the Wall and beyond, of Craster’s Keep and the Citadel, the wildlings, and the Night’s watch. But today Jaime’s single hand is unacceptably stiff, and he simply sits on the bench next to the portly maester, and listens.

Out of nowhere, Jaime finds himself asking about Tormund Giantsbane. Sam Tarly launches into a long and unnecessary account of how Jon had befriended him, which Jaime sits through impatiently.

“But how does he know Brienne?” he finally interrupts him.

Sam looks a little taken aback. “I’m not sure. I think they were in the same unit at Karhold the last few weeks. I haven’t really seen them together here.”

He nods, thinking. He isn’t really concerned about the wildling’s claims, which sound like so much barbarian boasting. The ginger has a snowflake’s chance in Dorne with Brienne. But he is troubled just the same.

The Maid of Tarth seems to have many admirers here in Winterfell. Their positions have reversed; how she is in a position of influence and he is the outcast, without even the prestige of his house to offer. Even if he has not done something to offend her, his friendship simply may not mean so much to her now as it once did.

“She’s a little bit scary, that Brienne of Tarth. I mean, she’s wonderful, but a bit terrifying. Did you know,” Sam relaxes into a new tale, relieved to be sitting down, “that she killed Stannis Baratheon on the field of battle? And beat The Hound in single combat?”

“I did know.” Jaime would very much have liked to have seen both of those things. “I know her well, or at least I once did.”

“How do you know her?” Sam starts in on him curiously.

“Story for another day.” Jaime stands and stretches.

Sam smiles. “Was she your sweetheart?”

There is no good answer to that question, so he ignores it. “Keep carrying that shield around throughout the day. Get used to holding it, get those arms stronger. Find me tomorrow and we’ll train again.”

Jaime leaves him in the Broken Tower to rest and walks back to his room, thinking. He would very much like to know how he would fare in a real fight now. He has worked hard to improve, and he has not yet unsheathed Widow’s Wail against an opponent. Who might he test himself against here?

Busy in these thoughts, he doesn’t notice footsteps until he has almost reached his quarters. Someone has followed him in from the courtyard. He thinks of the golden shadow and shudders a little. It was strangely familiar, that shape. If it weren’t a completely mad idea, he would have sworn it looked just like –

“Kingslayer,” a girlish voice calls at him.

 _Am I expected to answer to that now?_ He turns part way. Of course it isn’t her, his golden shadow. Instead a not-quite-grown girl with dark auburn hair is marching up behind him with a determined look on her face.

The girl lifts her chin defiantly. She comes just about to his shoulder, maybe seven stone soaking wet, but she’s bold. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“Should I?” He hunts quickly through the northern families he knows. Probably a Karstark. One of Rickard’s… too young to be a daughter. Granddaughter? Another of the Stark bannermen – though they had switched to Bolton at some point, hadn’t they? And now this one is back. Who can keep track of all these northern houses and their shifting loyalties?

“Alys Karstark,” she confirms, fury in her voice. “You killed my uncles at the Whispering Wood. Torren and Harrion.”

“I killed a lot of people at the Whispering Wood,” he says tiredly. “I didn’t take their names.” He still had his right hand then, and there had been many losses on both sides. That was the battle where Robb Stark had taken him prisoner, after which he had lost a year of his life, and then his hand. Hardly  glorious memories.

“They should have killed you on the field.” Her raised voice only emphasizes how young she truly is. It’s irritating. “Instead of holding you prisoner, you should have been executed. If Lady Catelyn hadn’t set you free my grandfather would have finished you.”

“I’m aware it’s a common opinion,” he responds dryly. What does she want from him, an apology? It was a war. They were all trying to kill one another, and her uncles would have happily struck him down if they could.

“You’ll never be one of us,” she snaps, as if he didn’t know it already.

The young Karstark spits in his face and stomps away. Jamie wipes at it with the back of his hand and sighs. He should perhaps just avoid redheads in general from now on.

In his room, he drops his sword on the table and starts unstrapping his golden hand, to rest his stump awhile. When he hears footsteps again, he says over his shoulder: “Have you come back to spit on me again? Shall I get you a step-stool?”

“No,” a familiar voice answers him unexpectedly. Jaime looks up.

It isn’t the Karstark girl. It’s Brienne, hovering awkwardly in the doorway, Podrick Payne just behind her. She takes up the entire doorway, between her wide shoulders and her wide stance. But she stares at the floor awkwardly, like a much smaller person. She’s changed from the armor she wore to practice, and now wears a simple grey tunic and linen pants, her hair still flattened from the helmet she had worn earlier. She keeps her hands hidden in her long fur-lined cape.

In the week since she returned to Winterfell, she has not approached him, and he has been unable to find her alone. This is the first time they have been face to face since Jaime arrived delirious and ill, and if you don’t count that (and he doesn’t) the first time since much longer than that.

 “Brienne! It’s… good to see you.” Jaime fumbles, surprised. “I hear you are leading your own regiment now. That’s –”

“You look well,” she interrupts stiffly. Her eyes only barely glance up at him before returning to the floor. “Pod, could you gather my things?”

Podrick jumps into action, moving into the room to claim the items that Brienne left behind when Jaime inherited her room. He is trying very hard to look as though he can’t hear them.

Jaime’s face falls. She hasn’t come to talk, not with Pod here between them. Then again she could have come at any time when he was out. Perhaps she was hoping he would still be at his training with Sam. But maybe...

 “Would you like your quarters back?” Jaime asks her, trying to get a conversation going. “I’m sure they can put me somewhere else.”

“No,” she says quickly. Her tone is formal and controlled, but her hands fidget beneath her cape. “I don’t need a room. Sansa has Arya to guard her now, and I’m sleeping in the barracks with the rest of the soldiers.”

Jaime can’t imagine she would prefer that, appropriate or no. Is there some other reason she would rather be there? Spending time with a red-bearded wildling perhaps? He grimaces at that thought, and tries to banish it from his mind.

He busies himself redoing the straps on his golden hand, which he had half removed. He hates the way she isn’t looking at him. Does he repel her so much now?

Pod carries a small bundle out. There wasn’t much left behind, or maybe Brienne simply doesn’t have much. Anyway, the task is done. Pod passes behind his lady and stands behind her in the hall, trying to stay out of sight. Brienne looks for a moment as if she will follow, balanced uncomfortably between staying and going.

This used to be simple. Things had been easy between them once. She used to look at him with a shining and solid belief that made him feel like a different man, a better one. He remembers it so clearly, but now he wonders. Jaime used to believe a lot of things that weren’t true in the slightest – that were perhaps delusions, or lies he told himself. He doesn’t know what to believe now. He cannot trust his instincts anymore. 

“I wanted to say…” she hovers uncomfortably, hesitating. “I’m sorry for leaving you like I did. My duties required me to join the forces at Karhold.”

Brienne fumbles for a moment, trying to explain. But Jaime interrupts her.

“Oh,” he says mildly. “You were away?”

She gets the sort of expression of grave annoyance he had become familiar with on the road to King’s Landing, when she had been determined not to let him provoke a response.

“For weeks,” she says pointedly.

“Ah. I hadn’t noticed. I’ve been busy.” Jaime looks back down at his hand as he buckles the last strap. _You idiot._ Why is he saying this? He’s thought of so many things he’d like to say to Brienne, and instead he says nothing. Worse than nothing. He can’t seem to stop himself from being flippant about all the things that most trouble him.

Anyway, she isn’t fooled, and he knew she wouldn’t be. They really do know each other too well.

“I’m sorry, Ser Jaime,” Brienne repeats. This time it is slower, serious, more sincere.

If she had done anything but apologize he might have known how to react, but a sincere apology, he does not know what to do with that. Cersei’s apologies were all tricks; she was never truly sorry. She only wanted him to be agreeable again. As cruel as she could be, she could be just as sweet and concillatory. When she wanted to, she could be everything he loved in her all at once, and if he showed her any vulnerability in return she would pry it open and get what she wanted from him. He would find himself promising her everything she wanted, as though she were the one wronged. It happened every time. What might Brienne want from him?

But no, he thinks she means it, even though she actually has nothing to apologize for. He is not her lord or her commander, and she does not have to wait at his bedside or tell him farewell when she travels on. He’s nothing to her. Accepting her apology would admit how hurt and confused he has been without her, and Jaime isn’t ready for that. That’s just the kind of weakness Cersei would have exploited. Brienne is not Cersei, she would not do as Cersei did, but that only means he has no idea how to proceed. It’s as he told Tyrion earlier – he really doesn’t know what love should be like.

“It’s nothing,” he says without feeling. He meets her gaze and makes himself smile. “No need to apologize.”

“My lady,” Pod interrupts them courteously. He looks reluctant to speak up. “I must return...” he trails off meaningfully.

“That’s all right Pod, I’m coming,” she says, after a long pause, and turns back to the corridor. She nods formally to him as she takes her leave. “Take care, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime watches her go, confusion and longing a hot knife in his gut. He wants to follow her. He wants to shake her until she tells him what he has done wrong, other than everything. He wants to beg her forgiveness for every one of his sins and swear loyalty to her until his dying day. But he can only stand there like an idiot and watch her walk away from him. All of his old confidence has fled him. King’s Landing bled it out of him, in that last year of struggle and grief and failure. In the North he is lost and uncertain, with no place and no way to be of use. No way to be of use _to her_. Until he finds one, he will only make more of a fool of himself.

What can he do? What could he tell her that would fix this? There isn’t anything. It would do her no good to know Bran’s prophecies, if she doesn’t know them already. And he should not burden her with something so inconsequential as his feelings for her when such terrible danger looms over them all.

He leans against the doorframe long enough to watch Brienne and Pod turn a corner and pass out of sight, and then closes the door.

Jaime leans his forehead against the door and wishes with all his might that he could take this awful longing out of himself. Just reach down his own throat and pull out all of the love and tenderness in his body and throw it away. It has never done him any good, this love. No one has wanted it. So he pretends it isn’t there and that he is callous and careless and all the while his heart is breaking, slowly and irreversibly.

With a long sigh, he drops into his chair by the dead and smouldering fire and lets the long and lonely hours pass in silence until the evening meal.

 

* * *

 

The temperature falls drastically as the sun sets unseen, only a purpling cast to the cloud cover signaling its location. It begins to snow in earnest, fat flakes falling in clusters that will soon pile up beyond the crowds ability to trample it down. The wind howls so that even the thick walls of Winterfell echo with the sound.

Jaime trudges through the tent-filled outer courtyard with a hood over his face, heavy-hearted. He would not have ventured out at all except that he had been promised mead if he would meet Tyrion at the great hall for dinner, and a drink to quiet his mind would be welcome.

He takes note of the commoners camped in tents and lean-tos around him, families and friends, sharing food and drink. Snatches of music can be heard from the shelters, strings and singing. He catches glimpses of them through entryways and pulls his cloak tighter around him in the cold.

It must always be like this for the small folk, blown one way or another by forces beyond their control. Always there is some danger approaching, whether brigands or mercenary companies like the Brave Companions or war between the houses. It never seems to make much difference to them who sits the Iron Throne so long as their homes are secure and their bellies full. When the current danger passes they can go back to their village and live out their lives.

_ Perhaps not such a bad way to live, _ he thinks, watching a man scoop up two tiny wayward children and haul them in out of the snow.  _ We of the great houses flatter ourselves that we matter so much, we flail and fight. But all along Doom has been awaiting us North of the wall, regardless of all our plans. Everything we’ve done amounts to nothing now. At least the small folk know it, and take what pleasures they can. _

He stops and looks up along the walls, squinting through a fog of falling snow. There is no sign of the gold flicker he had seen earlier, but he has a feeling that if he keeps looking he will find it again.

On a sudden impulse he retraces his steps back, looking all around the ramparts. Only the occasional armed guard punctuates the stone walls, grey on grey. He had been in the Inner Keep when he had caught sight of it before, and he thinks he will go back there, to see if he might find it.

Just as he is ready to give up, his peripheral vision catches a flash of gold.  But not up along the walls - at ground level this time. And closer.

He pushes past the last line of refugees loitering in the courtyard, fixing his eyes beyond the Stark Guards who congregate at the entry gates. It was there, past them, that he had seen it, and no sooner had he ventured in that direction that he saw it again.  

Out there beyond the gates, that golden shadow. He gets a good long look this time, shielding his eyes from the snow. It’s a person, definitely the shape of a person, visible even through the swirling snow around her. A woman, he would lay his life on it.

Then it’s gone again, withdrawn into the swirling snow.

Once or twice he could believe his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he has seen it too many times now. No matter how mad it seems, he is definitely seeing something. Something that looks like…

_Cersei. It looked like Cersei._

He is going mad. There is no other explanation for it. Seeing his dead sister walking in a snowstorm, the Northerners would lock him up if they knew. He’s going to end up like Aerys, gibbering at nothing and chasing ghosts.

Stubbornly he trains his eyes on the swirling snow beyond the guards and tells himself that his eyes are playing tricks on him, he has been working too hard and sleeping too little. If indeed there is a person beyond the gates it is surely a northern woman, foraging outside for food, or perhaps a new refugee approaching for shelter. There are women enough around Winterfell, though most are dark-haired and none of them blonde as he and Cersei. If he looks long enough he will get a better look and prove himself wrong, or see nothing and be wrong again. Then he can go on to meet Tyrion inside.

He stands there stiffly and stares until he sees it again: a human shape, in a golden fur, with golden hair. 

Jaime charges across the yard and pushes through the gates of Winterfell, past the Northern guards, and out into the whiteout. He has to hold a hand to his eyes to see but the woman is just ahead of him, backing away from him, luring him out into the blizzard. He hesitates only a moment, telling himself it is a mistake to follow, doing it anyway.

Beyond the first line of trees where the wind lessens a little and he can finally see, the golden woman beckons to him. Her furs are thick and layered, an opulence unknown to the practical North but warm and inviting in the cold.

Smiling under an ermine hood is the face Jaime knows better than any other. If it’s an illusion, it’s not going away.

It’s Cersei. His sister here, alive, at Winterfell.

“Jaime,” Cersei says, opening her arms to him, her words as warm and welcoming as a summer day. “My love.”

Jaime grabs Cersei by her wrists and pulls her deeper into the forest, his heart thudding against the walls of his chest.

Not so long ago he would have reacted with joy at the sight of her, Cersei alive again, come back to him. But it is not joy he feels now, but something much heavier. Dread, fear, bewilderment. Once they are well away from view of the gates of Winterfell he swings around her and takes his sister by the shoulders. He must shout to her to be heard over the wailing wind. “What kind of trickery is this? You’re dead.”

“You believed that?” Cersei smiles so prettily at him, so lovingly. “Who told you that? The Starks? Tyrion? Do you really believe everything they tell you?”

He stares at her in shock. It’s true – he had only their word. He saw no body, no burial, he is hundreds of miles away in the North. All of Winterfell believes The Queen is dead. Could they all be lying? Or could they be mistaken? Rumor and conjecture can be manipulated, controlled; it’s what the Iron Throne kept the Master of Whispers for. Faking the death of a monarch would be a deception of unprecedented scale, nearly impossible to maintain.

But can he really put that past Cersei, after all she’s done?

Jaime falters only gradually. “I must be dreaming. This can’t be real. The whole kingdom knows. Everyone – are you saying it’s all a lie? How are you here, what’s happened?”

Her eyes grow wide and beseeching. “Treachery, Jaime. Euron betrayed me, he would have killed me if he could. He took the Small Council from me, he grew violent. I had to flee; we left my handmaiden in my place. Poor Bernadette, she drank the poison meant for me,” she says, but she is clearly not sorry. “My loyal guards dressed her in my clothes and secreted me away under cover of night. Either Euron did not view the body himself, or he was only too happy to encourage the rumor that I had died.”

Still disbelieving, he grips her shoulders tightly. “But why come here? Why come to Winterfell of all places?”

“To find you, of course. My love,” Cersei murmurs to him with obvious relief. She tries to kiss him, her hands on his coat pulling him close. He jumps back as though her touch burns him.

“Don’t- not here.” Jaime looks anxiously around them for any signs of observers. But there is no one; they are entirely alone. For some reason this makes him all the more disquieted. “It’s not safe for you here, not anywhere in the North. Couldn’t you have sent me a message?”

“With you amongst our enemies? There is no messenger I trust. There is no one in the world I trust but you. Please – you have to help me, Jaime.” Cersei keeps her hands on him, caressing his beard. “Come away with me. Help me regather our forces to retake King’s Landing.”

“I can’t,” Jaime cuts in sharply, tries to detach her hold on his new winter coat. “I’m – the war – I’m fighting with the Starks against the white walkers. Winterfell will soon be under siege. I can’t leave them now.”

“They won’t miss you.” She shakes her head with a reassuring smile, seeming not to hear his objections, completely in control.

As ever, she says things that sound hurtful but smiles so sweetly when she does it that he cannot justify being upset with her. He is too sensitive, she has always said.  He imagines things.

“They need everyone,” he says firmly. “And I’ve promised to serve. As I told you before, I’m going to fight those monsters in any way I can.”

Now she is beginning to frown. “As what, a soldier? There are thousands of soldiers, Jaime, you’re nothing to them. Come with me, _I_ need you.”

 _I need you_. That’s what she had always told him. Even now it reminds him of how intoxicating it had been to be the gallant hero for her. No one here at Winterfell needs him like that.

But then again, Cersei had tired of him eventually. Once she became Queen nothing he did pleased her, and all his efforts seemed only to irritate her further. What exactly does she want from him now?

“Need me for what?” He cannot keep the bitterness from his voice. “You certainly didn’t need me in King’s Landing. I’m the gullible fool who only gets in your way, remember?”

“I was wrong. I need you, Jaime. I need you to help me take back what’s ours. I can’t do it without you.” She is wide-eyed and beseeching, but behind that, a note of steel. She did not expect him to refuse her. “The Iron Throne is ours by right, you must help me regain it.”

Jaime shakes his head slightly, without notice. The Iron Throne has brought nothing to their house but death and debt and ruin. He has never understood why she wanted it so much.

Under the shelter of the trees the wind has been slowly dying away to a distant hiss that no longer drowns out their voices. The wood around them glows white with new snow, the air clear and crisp. He can see her more clearly now, can pick out the small and familiar details of her face that he had begun to forget. Her long eyelashes that so perfectly frame her lovely green eyes, her delicate pale skin, the cruel twist of her mouth.

He realizes Cersei is still talking, going on about their position while his thoughts had wandered. “The Starks, the Greyjoys, the Targaryens. As ever we are surrounded by enemies. We must move to crush them all, now, while they don’t see us coming.”

He cannot help but be exasperated with her. She’s always been like this; Cersei has never forgotten a single slight in all her life and never failed to repay it in kind.

In the face of Winter, and potential ruin at the hands of a dead army and real dragons, this insistence on carrying on her own personal vendettas seems foolishly petty to him now.

He tries to talk sense, without much hope that she will listen. “This is an opportunity to be done with all that, Cersei. We should end this war with the Starks. They’re only children. Ned and Cat are dead, most of the Northern houses are decimated. They no longer threaten our lands. There are much larger problems now than squabbles between our houses.”

“Those _children_ ,” she emphasizes scornfully, “have united the Northern houses again and again. Do you think they will come back under the rule of King’s Landing after they’ve been kings and queens of the North? Do you honestly think they’ll stop there?”

Crossing his arms, Jaime holds firm. “I promised Catelyn Stark I would raise no arms against her family, the Tullys and her children. I’m keeping my promises, Cersei. It might well be that no one in the world wants me to, but I’m keeping them anyway.”

Cersei takes on a placating tone, slipping her arms around his neck. “You won’t have to fight them. Only tell me what they are planning, how they can be defeated. I’ll do the rest.”

Suddenly he is tired, tired in an entirely familiar way. He had been learning to live without this burden of managing Cersei – Cersei’s moods, Cersei’s cruel notions, Cersei’s strange obsessions. Not having to live every day for someone else who never showed him the same consideration, it had been… good. A return to the way it had been before, the thought of it makes him truly miserable.

... gods, how could he be thinking this? Isn’t this exactly what he had wanted?

“I don’t know what they’re planning. They don’t trust me, and rightly so.”

“Find out,” Cersei insists. “Put an end to their treachery. If they’re only children, it should be easy enough. We could have Winterfell for our own, you and I.”

“Listen to yourself! This is madness.” Sincerely confused, still half-convinced he’s in a dream, Jaime detaches her from him in a swift motion. “What would we want with Winterfell? This frozen arsehole of a castle is going to be under assault by an army of dead men within a fortnight or two. Casterly Rock is our home, focus your efforts on regaining it from the Unsullied. If you truly want to take back what’s ours, that is where to begin, not here.”

Madness, the word echoes in his ears. He’s heard her called the Mad Queen more than once since he left King’s Landing. And were there not times he stood beside her on the Iron Throne and felt as much a hostage as he had with Aerys? She was irrational, paranoid, hungry for power. He didn’t remember it clearly until now, and the memory shakes him. So many times he had been warned of her nature and he had pushed the warnings aside. What was plain to all the world at a distance had eluded him; he thought he knew better. Somehow he had stood right beside all that time and refused to see.

“I’m glad that you are alive, Cersei, I truly am,” he tells her, stepping deliberately back. “But I think it best if you go your way and I go mine, at least until this war is complete.”

“You condemn me to death.” Now Cersei is beginning to look even more familiar to him, when she grows angry. “I cannot survive this terrible cold –  it’s inhuman. Bring me inside the walls, surely you can conceal me somewhere.”

“Inside Winterfell? I can’t – I won’t. They don’t trust me as it is.” He shakes his head vigorously, looking back at the gates of Winterfell. He imagines what would happen if he brought her inside. If they found them there together – Tyrion, the Starks, Brienne – he can’t think long on their reaction to that. It would be a betrayal. “If you will appeal to them for shelter I will go with you, but I will not secret you inside.”

Cersei is indignant at the suggestion. “I am the Queen of Westeros, I will not go begging for sanctuary. Maybe you will bend the knee to these dog-lords, but I am still a Lannister. We bend the knee to no one,” she says coldly.

“Then you should return to the Westerlands, shelter with our Bannermen. You have no business here,” he answers her matter-of-factly.

She huffs out an angry breath, glaring back at him. Her posture is stiff with startled outrage.

“It’s that wretched, hideous Brienne of Tarth isn’t it?” Now this looks like the Cersei he had left at King’s Landing, angry and mean. “She’s turned you against me.”

His will hardens. “You turned me against you. Or have you forgotten when you threatened to have me killed?”

Cersei ignores this unimportant detail. “She’s bewitched you somehow. You were never the same after you returned with that creature. You had an affair on the way back to King’s Landing,” she accuses flatly.

“I never touched her,” he answers tightly.

“But you wanted to,” his sister insists.

He avoids that question. “I have always been true to you, Cersei. You know I’ve never touched any woman but you.”

Her eyes widen slightly, and his instincts scream at him silently. _Something is wrong with this. This is a trick of some kind._ What kind of trick he can’t imagine, not when he can hear Cersei, touch her, speak to her.

Then Cersei smiles, a cruel smile he knows well, that means she has just gotten an idea.

“Very well then. I will request shelter from the Starks. They took you in, why should they not take me? Even a prison cell would be better than chancing the wilds of the North any longer. Besides, I can do _so much_ within those walls. I’ll have a great deal to tell them. I can fray the alliance between the Targaryen girl and the Starks using Tyrion, tell them he has conspired with me all along. Just like you. I have my loyalists waiting for my word, they will call our banners North to free me. The Starks cannot fight the North and South all at once. We will have Winterfell razed and the North crushed. When I have back the Iron Throne there will be no one left to oppose me.”

The last doubt leaves his mind; this **is** Cersei.

It’s all too plausible. Jaime can picture it now, the chaos Cersei could create in Winterfell if she set her will to it. Lannister forces camped outside the walls and discord within, weakening them all just enough to be easy pickings for the Night’s King. Oh, she would go down with the rest of them, but she wouldn’t care. She would really kill them all just for spite. Cersei would find a way.

He cannot let her into Winterfell, not under any circumstances. She is too dangerous. He will have to lead her away from here.

“Alright,” he tells her, surrendering. “I will come away with you. We will retake our home at Casterly Rock with our bannermen and shelter against the winter and the dead. I have learned much about them here, and the tunnels beneath the Rock can hold a great many people. We will rebuild our house there.”

She melts against him again, all smiles, and again he has a twinge of disbelief. _Something is wrong with this. This is a dream._

If it is, it is not a happy dream. He is leaden with dread at the thought of leaving with her. But what choice does he have? He must keep her away from Winterfell.

“Only give me a few hours – let me gather some supplies. I have gold and weapons, and we will need them.” Perhaps he can think of some other solution in that time. Tyrion would think of something.

She pulls back abruptly, with a wary look. “You mean to call the guards on me. No, you will not leave me behind. I think,” she sweetens her tone, “if we wait here long enough someone will come out looking for you. It might even be your pet Brienne. Won’t that be nice? We can introduce her to Ser Gregor, they can spar for us. We can see who has the better champion.”

Gregor Clegane. Of course she brought the Mountain with her, she would not have made it far without him. That fleshy gargoyle must be watching them even now, waiting for Cersei to command him.

In a flash he sees Oberyn Martel’s head caving in beneath those monstrous hands, and shudders. Could this be the danger Bran saw? That Gregor Clegane would crush Brienne at Cersei’s command? A terrible death that he could avert, that perhaps _only_ he could prevent, by pacifying his sister. Maybe this is how he saves her life.

He is talking faster now, backpedaling desperately. “I will come away with you. We’ll go now, before anyone notices I’ve gone. You’re right, they are likely to look for me, and that will complicate things. We’ll leave now and outrun any reprisals.”

“Suddenly you are in a hurry to leave,” she says with a cruel smile. “You would protect your pet Brienne before you would me. I think we should wait here and see what happens.”

At this he grips her arms angrily. “What do you want, Cersei? Did you really come here for me? Or are you after some kind of revenge? If it’s me you want, you have me! I will enact your will the way I always have. But not here. We should leave them all to freeze, you and I, and focus on our home lands. Who here has wronged you, that you should revenge us against the entire North?”

“They defied me! I am the rightful Queen of Westeros. No more reason is needed.”

“You’re out of your mind,” he says, unable to contain his disgust. “If you were ever the rightful Queen, you certainly aren’t now.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you approve. I have the Golden Company at my call, and the Lannister armies. We could storm Winterfell and put everyone in it to the sword. We could ring the keep with Stark heads… and their sworn swords too,” she adds meaningfully.  

Faster than thought his blade is unsheathed and at her neck.

“Sister,” he says in a voice so flat and blunt it could bludgeon her to death. “I will go away with you, I will protect you, but if you cause any harm to Brienne of Tarth I will cut your pretty throat. That is the only deal I will make with you now. We go away to Casterly Rock, and stay there and trouble the other houses no longer. Or you leave without me. But you will leave.”

“This is how you greet me, after I’ve come all this way to find you? I thought you would be overjoyed to see me alive, Jaime.”

“A month ago I might have been. But I think now the realm was better off with you dead… and I think I was too.” His sword shakes a little against her pale neck. He is wrenchingly confused to hear himself saying such things, even knowing them to be true. There have been so many true things, over the years, that he has never said aloud. It would have been disloyal.

She stares at him a long, measuring beat. Then she raises her voice. “Ser Gregor! Come!”

Jaime whips his head around urgently, looking for the giant form of The Mountain crashing through the snow-laden trees. A surge of adrenaline pounds doom through his veins. He can’t possibly fight the Mountain. Even with two hands he had struggled to best him, and that was before Qyburn had made his improvements. Clegane would flatten him in a fight now, if a blade to Cersei’s throat did not hold him at bay. Was it even possible to reason with such a creature? Even if he cut Cersei down, what would the Mountain do?

He looks to one side and the other, waiting. He can’t see Gregor, nor hear him. Did he not hear his sister’s call for aid?

When he turns back to her, Cersei is gone, and in her place is Arya Stark.

She’s shrunk several inches shorter, the blonde hair turned longer and brown. She smiles at him, unconcerned of the blade at her throat.

Jaime reels back in shock, several quick steps, nearly falling to the ground. Somehow he keeps his blade pointed unsteadily at her. “What kind of witchcraft?” he hisses, eyes wide.

Arya laughs, loud and long, a strangely brittle sound in the snowy wood. She wears the same clothes as his sister, but they sit entirely differently on her thin frame. How did he ever mistake this boyish girl for Cersei?

Jaime sits down hard in the snow and lets his sword rest beside him, still trying to get a firm grip on reality. Cersei is still dead. Not alive.

“How? Why?” he sputters, not expecting an answer.

“Well, let’s see…” Arya pretends to think it over, scratches her chin while standing over him. “You pushed my little brother out the window and crippled him for life. My father was beheaded before my eyes and I’ve spent every day since running for my life. Meanwhile Winterfell was burned, and your family murdered my brother Robb and my mother and all of our bannermen at dinner. The day you showed up at Winterfell my childhood ended and my home and family were lost forever. Is that reason enough for you?”

Then Arya grins, and it makes his blood run cold. “Also it was fun. You should have seen the look on your face.”

Jaime stares up at her, wide-eyed, dumbfounded. The diminutive Stark clasps the golden furs around her. Where did she get them? How can she change her face, and her voice, and even grow taller? In a world with dragons and wights, somehow this is even more alarming.

“You didn’t betray Winterfell, even to your sister. I wonder if I wasn’t convincing enough.” She looks slightly disappointed at not catching him out. 

But she was very convincing indeed. It should have been transparent, Arya’s trap. But what for anyone else would have been out of character becomes entirely plausible coming from Cersei. The scheming, the manipulation, the insistence on punishing her enemies. She had been exactly that vindictive and irrational and cruel. It rang entirely true.

 _Cersei’s still dead._ He should be crushed, but instead he finds he is mostly relieved. Relieved and astonished by his own relief. Even if it wasn’t really her, somehow he has seen his sister clearly for the first time, and himself as well.

“No, it was a good trick.” Jaime pushes up to his feet a little unsteadily, and laughs to himself a little. “A poor move, though. I would have been your ally, you can see now. Is this how Ned treated his allies? Somehow I doubt that’s the Stark way of things.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Arya snorts.

“I understand exactly,” he says pointedly. “You would make a fine Lannister.”

That wiped the smile off her face, as he knew it would. It’s his talent, knowing exactly how to hurt people. Once in awhile it can be useful, though it wins him no friends.

Jaime turns and walks out of the wood, shuffling through the fresh snow back to the Keep. The storm has settled, and the snowfall turned light and peaceful. With night falling the grey monolith of the Keep before him slowly alights with the warm glow of lanterns and firelight.

Turning his back on the girl is probably unwise, but she can’t act against him now. They know too much about each other. He supposes they will have to settle accounts sooner or later, but now is not the time. He has other things to do.

Some slender thread inside him has broken. Too many shocks all in a row: seeing Cersei again, rebuffing her, and then she’s dead again. He’s been shaken so roughly that all his grief and regret and shame is shoved aside and for the first time he can see through to the other side of it, where all the remaining years of his life yawn open before him.

He gave everything to Cersei – his entire life had been devoted to her. If it had not been enough, there was literally nothing more he could have done. It would never have been enough, would it? Not for either of them.

Now she is dead, and he is alive.

And the rest of his life, the rest is his.

Jaime passes through the main gate, pulling back his hood as he comes in out of the snow, and finds his way into the inner keep where he knows Jon Snow and his loyalists will be meeting – a War Council that neither he nor Tyrion have been party to. He has waited long enough; if no one is going to give him a place here, he will have to make his own.

He feels more himself than he has in a very long time. He has been tentative and unsure ever since he left King’s Landing, but no longer. Now he strides confidently past the Stark bannermen lingering in the halls of the keep without explanation, finds his way to their meeting room, and pushes the doors open.

Jon Snow is bent over a map, with several men standing around him. A dozen more are seated around the long table, brown-bearded and fur-clad and solemn. At his entry they all turn to look, startled.

“Sorry I’m late,” Jaime says to them smoothly. “I think my invitation must have gotten lost.” He pulls the doors shut behind him while the northmen gape.

Red-bearded Tormund glares at him from his seat. “No one invited you. This is a war council, not a banquet hall, Sisterfucker.”

“Correct,” Jaime acknowledges, in his most condescending tone. “I’ve come to win your war.”

Jon Snow speaks up, eyebrows raised. “I’ve gathered my commanders to discuss battle strategy. They each bring me their banners, hundreds of men. What do you bring?”

“I bring the Golden Company,” he tells them, loud and clear.

This creates some confusion, and the war council dissolves into murmurings and arguments. He hears some whispering behind him, and finds there next to the door Sansa Stark sitting, with Brienne at her side. Good. He wants them to hear this.

“Nonsense,” a white-bearded man, Stanis’s Onion Knight, speaks out. “The Kraken has the Golden Company.”

“They were bought from the Iron Bank by my sister,” Jaime corrects him, “with **my** gold. The gold of Casterly Rock is collateral, and by inheritance Casterly Rock is mine.”

Jon Snow sits back in his chair, interested, but skeptical. “The Bravosi bankers lend to the throne, not to your house. Euron has the Iron Throne, and with it the Iron Bank.”

He ambles slowly over to Jon’s side of the table to take a glance at their map, appraising it casually as he speaks.

“They may lend to the throne, but the Golden Company was purchased. The Iron Bank dealt with House Lannister, not the whole of Westeros. They give their support as they please, to whoever will be most profitable. Our old friend Tycho Nestor placed a bet that House Lannister would be on top at the end of this war. With Cersei dead, House Lannister passes to my brother and I, not Euron Greyjoy.”

This much is a gamble. His message to the Iron Bank will still be in transit, since it went out only this morning it won’t have reached Braavos yet, and of course he will have no reply for some days more. But he’s made the argument to Tycho Nestor, and he knows it a sound one– Euron is an unknown quantity, unstable and uncouth, and aside from King’s Landing he holds only the Iron Islands, which are not exactly a fount of riches. Jaime has all the mines of Casterly Rock as collateral on the immense debt owed by the Capital. No sensible man would bet on Euron over him, and the Iron Bank is nothing if not sensible. Never mind that the mines at Casterly Rock are nearly empty now – no one alive knows that but he and Tyrion. That’s another bluff they’ll have to figure a way out of someday.

For the moment he has only his name and his person, and whatever tales he can spin, and it will have to be enough. Jaime can come up with a strategy to defend Winterfell, he is sure of it, and he can bring forces from the South as well. He only has to make these men listen.

He looks up at each of them in turn. “I am clarifying things with the Iron Bank, and they will award the Golden Company to me. I am the head of House Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West,” he says, and for the first time he truly believes it. “The Golden Company is mine. The Stormlands are mine. My bannermen will heed my call, if I should decide to call them.”

Jon shares a wordless glance with his nearest advisors. Then the King in the North addresses him. “And where will you bring them?”

“That’s something we ought to discuss, shouldn’t we?”

There is no seat for him at this table, but no matter. He finds the biggest, heaviest wooden chair on the periphery of the room and drags it one-handed across the floor. It produces a terrible, scraping sound that makes more than one man at the table cover his ears.

He settles his chair at the great long table right next to Jon Snow, and drops down into it.

Jon looks amused, despite himself. “You know,” he says in a low voice, “I was going to invite you and Tyrion, once the Northern Lords got used to having you around.”

Jaime shrugs. “This is faster. Our time is short, and I’m not known for my patience.” A little louder, he continues. “So, should the Golden Company defend Winterfell from the White Walkers, or should they form a bulwark against attack from the South? I’m open to suggestions.”

At the far end of the room, in an unobtrusive seat at Sansa’s side, Brienne is watching. And he could swear that she is smiling, faintly.

He meets her gaze and holds it. And he promises her, and himself: _I will make you believe in me again. I will._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and that ends the first phase of this story. We're done with Cersei (at least as much as we can be) and now we'll be seeing a lot more Brienne, and a lot more plot! 
> 
> Next chapter, we make battle plans, more characters want swordfighting lessons, we discuss Brienne's marriage prospects, and Viserion attacks!


	5. Maps and Legends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime joins the war effort and helps to prepare for the Siege of Winterfell, while taking on an unexpected new role. He also faces his first duel since losing his hand, and learns something unexpected about Brienne. Winterfell faces a dragon attack.

Over three months, nearly four, have passed since Jaime left King’s Landing, and at last he has regained a sense of equilibrium. He has settled into a confident rhythm that suits him, even in this cold and desolate place, so unlike the world he once knew. His days are, if not better, at least busier. Working side by side with Tyrion has been deeply satisfying, and being fully included in the war effort has done much to reclaim his famous confidence. It is also an uphill battle in more ways than one.

It has long been said in King’s Landing that Jaime Lannister takes nothing seriously. In times past he has been best known for a careless smile and a glib joke in even the most solemn of circumstances, and even his brother Tyrion would comment that the famed swordsman revered nothing but battle and often not even that.

This has never been precisely true. There are many matters that Jaime takes very seriously indeed. But he has long had to keep such things concealed, such as his devotion to Cersei. Other matters he has avoided altogether since he became the Kingslayer, along with any intimations of honor or nobility. For all those years of stasis in King’s Landing he had evaded ever being put in the position of deciding other people’s fates.

By the end of his time in King’s Landing, that was no longer true. Not by choice, of course; everyone else was dead. His elders in the Kingsguard, his father, the small council, all gone. Once there was no one left, he had to make a great many decisions and plans on Cersei’s behalf. Even if she had not listened to most of them, they had been sound. As a consequence, Jaime has grown accustomed to responsibility much faster than anyone else has acclimated to taking him seriously.

Strong-arming his way onto the War Council at Winterfell has been his first victory after what seems an endless string of losses. Since dragging his own seat to their table he has maintained a place beside Tyrion and Jon Snow. But the Northern Lords remain intensely skeptical of him, and getting them to listen is a challenge. He has to prove his competence anew every day. Fortunately he can do that – Jaime knows the map and history of every settlement in Westeros, including the Northern holdings, and can discuss troop movements with the confidence of a man born to the frozen North. His experience in battle both as a soldier and commander is extensive. Anyone even passingly knowledgeable in the ways of warfare can immediately tell that Lord Lannister’s expertise is genuine, much as they might be loath to admit it.

In time the Northerners find his competence even more annoying than their previous conception of him as a spoiled brat of a Southerner. Any good idea he puts forward makes them frown harder, especially when they have no choice but to adopt them. It’s amusing in its way. Failing to live down to their expectations is as much a disappointment to the North as the opposite had been in the South.

They accept his good intentions even more grudgingly; that he may actually **want** to help them seems a notion beyond belief. It had been easier and more satisfying to think him a villain.

In some ways that has been easier on Jaime as well. One doesn’t have to do very much to maintain a bad reputation. A good one requires constant work, and is always precarious.

Jon Snow is somewhat more open to his contributions. Not out of any particular liking for him, Jaime senses, but sheer necessity. He would take anything from anyone at this point if it would help them defeat the enemy. This practicality more than anything else smooths their relations. There is no need for them to befriend one another, so long as they can work together.

Jaime is not entirely convinced of young Snow, the self-crowned King in the North. He’s a better leader than Robb Stark for certain, not so rash and overconfident, and ready to make peace with his rivals for the greater good. But there is too much Ned in him, an inflexibility once he has made up his mind that can easily harden into stubborn thick-headedness. Yet he seems to take counsel and consider his options, and can be ruthlessly pragmatic. He is young still, and over-troubled by conscience, perhaps not confident enough for the war that faces him. It is by no means certain that he is up to the task before him.

But Tyrion approves of him, as apparently does Brienne, and that alone inclines him to give the young man a chance. Which is not going to stop him from poking fun at Jon Snow’s doe-eyed earnestness, his ridiculous hair that looks perpetually wet and untidy, and the dire seriousness with which Jon conducts himself, so opposite his own disposition that Jaime cannot help finding it terribly funny.

As usual Jaime does not help his own cause with his demeanor. He is still inclined to insult and jab at men like the beady-eyed Howland Reed and the corpulent Wyman Manderly, just as his brother says he should be trying to endear himself to the Northmen. But Tyrion is no better - he shares the same dark sense of humor and shortage of tact. Many times they will share a morose joke that will earn them glares and haughty silences from the Northern Lords who mistake their gallows humor for indifference.

What a relief it is, Tyrion confesses to him, to be around at least one person who has their sense of humor intact. Danaerys’s inner circle had probably never once laughed in all their lives, and he was starting to think he had lost his famous wit.

In no time at all they are volleying sardonic commentary with the agility of their younger selves, to the annoyance of everyone around them. It makes them feel at home in the grey dark halls of Winterfell, spending hours around a table with the stone-faced Lord Glover, the crusty Lord Royce, the bloody-minded Lord Cerwin. Much of the time the brothers are the only ones to take any amusement in the situation, and they enjoy making each other laugh even in these grim circumstances. This has always been the way for them, and they are accustomed now to dire situations. The Northmen will simply have to get used to them; they have been at the gallows for a long time now.

The other outsider at the long table is the wildling Tormund Giantsbane, with his feral grin and tangled red beard. The North is inured enough to his presence to tolerate his uncouth behavior and abominable table manners, but apart from Jon Snow none of the council is inclined to entrust him with any real responsibility. This troubles Tormund not at all. He seems to think no more of the solemnity of the war council than the Lannister brothers do, and is content to address Jon directly, roar with laughter at Tyrion’s jokes, and ignore much of the rest of their company. In these surroundings, had he not staked an uncomfortable claim on Brienne, Jaime might have been tempted to like the man. As it is, they remain cautiously neutral with each other.

The war they have joined is not going well, and the reports from other Northern holds are grim and growing grimmer. Keep after Keep has fallen, been overrun, and fully annihilated. All inside who did not flee in time were slaughtered. The forces of the North who have tried to turn them back have managed only to delay them, and not by much at that. Jaime sits through hours of these councils, learning how shockingly uninformed Kings Landing has been of recent events. Battles have been fought long before he knew of White Walkers, all along the wall and beyond it. Giants walk beyond the Wall, along with wargs and “children of the forest”, creatures he would once have considered children’s stories. He’s become more credulous than he ever expected to be of such things. By now he’s seen with his own eyes dragons and dead things and face-changing magic, so why shouldn’t there be giants? Why wouldn’t the Red God grant visions in the fire? Why shouldn’t Jon Snow come back from the dead? It makes as much sense as anything else.

(This last haunts him more than he’d like to admit. The first he hears of it, his first thoughts are of Tommen and Marcella restored, living the childhoods they had never properly gotten. Then ruthless practicalities crowd into his mind, and these thoughts turn sour. He has terrible dreams of them, mournful and decaying, like smaller versions of The Mountain, shambling out of the Red Keep with accusing expressions. After this he is glad they had never heard of the Red God’s resurrections in King’s Landing.)

After years of strategic advantage Jaime is planning from the losing side, and he’s not especially enjoying that. He should have thought joining the faction with two dragons would have improved the odds, but for the most part Danaerys does not factor into their plans. After some initial losses (entirely predictable ones, from Jaime’s point of view) she and her remaining Dothraki have retired to Castle Black to lick their wounds. The remaining two dragons she has kept from the field, ever since Viserion was lost.

The North does have some remaining advantages. One of them is Winterfell itself, a stronghold near-impregnable to attack, including from above. Tyrion strongly suspects it has been designed to resist a siege, with its layers of outer and inner walls, and even perhaps to resist dragonfire. There is far less wood in its construction that one would expect in the forested North, and the grey stone that looks so cheerless in the landscape will withstand any amount of assault from dragons flying overhead, so long as people stay within its walls.

Of course, surviving an extended siege is another matter, and even their considerable stores of supplies will hold only so long without replenishment. They have many more inhabitants now than had ever been planned for, due to the many refugees fleeing the White Walkers, and their food will not last forever. They will have to hold against an enemy who will never tire, will never require resupply, and has nearly endless reinforcements. Inside they will be more and more depleted and hungry the longer a siege drags on. They will at some point have to win a decisive victory. Dead men will win any waiting game.

Their most urgent problem by far is how to reduce the numbers of their enemy without accidentally donating soldiers back to the dead army. Any Northmen killed will rise again as wights, which makes face to face combat foolhardy. Which means, Jaime insists frequently, the less you engage them directly, the better. There is still time to prepare the field, and he encourages them to make any changes to the terrain that would most hinder the incoming army from moving freely around the Keep. Anywhere you can bottleneck or trap them is a spot where fire could be directed, via trebuchet or arrow or buried caches, and burning wights crowded together will quickly transmit the fires far and wide.

They plan, and plan some more. Traps the Northmen are endlessly inventive with, knowing their terrain so well, and they set into those plans most eagerly. Already patrols of soldiers are out in the lands around Winterfell digging pits, setting wire traps to trigger fires, and so on. Hills are coated with layers of ice by pouring buckets of water across them in freezing temperatures. Pitchforks and scythes are gathered and planted in the road to slow approaches by horse or wagon. Tyrion and Sam have made a project of figuring out how to manufacture more wildfire, and have in recent weeks developed a formula that is not so explosive as the supply at King’s Landing, but that will burn effectively and long. An entire wing of the keep is devoted to cooking the stuff, a wing Jaime stays far from and still cannot escape the smell. They will begin planting the wildfire in the fields around Winterfell as well, soon, so that it can be lit with arrows at opportune times.

Tyrion has also collected every scrap of information Jaime can recollect about Qyburn’s ballistas. They had been ineffective against dragons, unfortunately, but could do some real damage to some of the larger creatures the Night’s King has produced, particularly the Giants. “And maybe, if there were more than one, and could fire faster, they could do more against the dragons,” Tyrion muses. He had seen the Scorpion only at a distance during the battle outside Highgarden, but he can still reproduce its general shape in a schematic drawing and with Jaime’s recollections and Sam’s input a prototype is developed. Trees are rapidly felled to try to build as many of them as time will allow.

Brienne attends many of these meetings and does her best to be unseen. She stays in a quiet corner, occasionally conferring with Sansa. If ever she joins them at the table it is at a far end from where he sits with Jon, and she remains silent and unobtrusive, though attentive to their discussion.

Jaime tries not to look her way. Some profoundly unhelpful part of his mind is constantly reminding him that she is _right there, right over there,_ as though he might have forgotten it in the few minutes since he last thought of it, and it requires attentive effort not to look over at her, to check to see what she thinks of something he has said, to see if she is looking back at him. He thinks he has felt her eyes on him at times, but he can’t be sure. It’s all very distracting, though a pleasant diversion from the grim nature of their planning.

Sansa is definitely looking, sometimes from one of them to the other in turn, but he can’t tell if she is outraged or amused or indifferent. She has perfected the haughty stare that many a noblewoman has wielded in her own defense, and there is no use trying to interpret it.

Despite that he has conducted himself perfectly respectably, and, he thinks, been reasonably impressive in his contributions, it has not made any noticable change in Brienne’s attitude. He does get to see much more of her here, but she is still as formal and impersonal towards him as she is towards anyone else in Winterfell. With the possible exception of the Stark sisters and Podrick, Brienne seems to be distant and guarded with everyone as a matter of course. It should be comforting to note, but it only reminds him how he has been demoted.

In all honesty he would prefer she would be exasperated with him than be indifferent. He might resort to antagonizing her directly, just to get a reaction. He’s going to try being respectable awhile longer first.

He can at least release these frustrations fighting. Despite his new participation in the war effort, Jaime has not abandoned his own training nor his lessons with Sam. Physical training has always balanced him out; sitting at tables day and night makes him profoundly restless. Mornings he takes to drill himself at forms and build his strength at the pell, and when Sam appears at midday he will spar with him until both are worn down. Sometimes Sam will bring someone with him; increasingly someone else eager for a fight in these uneasy days of waiting before the siege begins.

The first guest to their training sessions didn’t come to fight; first Sam introduces his lady, a dull-looking young woman with a terrible overbite trying in vain to soothe a noisy toddler.

“Gilly,” she nods to him a little shyly, from her perch on the tower stairs, her arms full of squirming child. Sam has run back to their quarters to retrieve his shield, which he has managed to forget.

“Kingslayer,” he says off-handedly, twisting a practice sword around his wrist. She will call him that eventually, may as well go straight to it.

“Jaime Kingslayer?”

 _Who is this girl?_ “No, that’s a bit of a nickname. One I don’t much like. You haven’t heard it?”

She shrugs. “I’m from North of the wall. We name ourselves there.”

Ah. Another wildling. That explains why she doesn’t know him.

She bounces the golden-haired child in her arms. “I don’t understand the Southern way, using names you don’t choose or want. That seems a fine name to me, though. Kingslayer. If you don’t like it, maybe little Sam will want it someday.”

Jaime smiles slowly. “He’ll have to kill a king for that.”

“Maybe he will,” she says stubbornly, brushing back unruly curls from the child’s face. “My Sam will do a great many things.”

 _Gilly is amusing._ “What name did you choose for yourself then?”

 This time she is the one to look taken aback. “Only Gilly. I did have another name once, but I didn’t like it, so I got rid of it. I think sometimes of being Gilly Tarly, but that sounds kind of unfortunate, dunnit?”

_What a family they are. Only Gilly and Just Sam. And baby Sam Kingslayer._

For a moment Jaime feels an old familiar pull of longing in his chest, the same one he had just experienced in the courtyard where the refugees gathered in their children at dusk. Such a simple and ordinary thing, setting down to dinner with a wife and children, and he was never going to have it. What he’s had is the white cloak, and a sister, and babes he never once held or comforted like Gilly is doing now.  

Of course, no one is going to hand him a baby here in Winterfell. He might fling it from a window.

“But you do have a second name, right?” Gilly disrupts his thoughts. “Not Kingslayer?”

“No,” he says firmly, and snaps his practice sword precisely into the first form. But somehow, he cannot bring himself to say Lannister either. “Jaime is all for now.”

Only Gilly looks confused. “Can I ask you something? Don’t you become a king when you kill one? That’s how it would be beyond the Wall. But there’s some other King in the South now, isn’t there?”

“So I’m told.” He channels his irritation at that into his next few forms. Euron Greyjoy, that peacock in pirate’s clothes. Jaime traces his outline in the air around his blade. His two hands won’t be much help when Jaime sees him next.

Little Sam quiets down temporarily, and Gilly lowers her voice a little as she cradles the babe against her. “How is it you’re not the King?”

“The dead may walk and dragons may have returned, but pigs aren’t flying quite yet,” he says back, circling around from his latest maneuver.

The girl looks at him blankly, and he remembers she isn’t making a joke. It’s a real question. She really doesn’t know anything about him. The Lannister name means nothing to her. His father’s deeds, Aerys, Cersei, none of it.

It’s actually rather refreshing. He lowers his practice blade a moment.

“I didn’t want the Iron Throne. I killed the king because he was mad and wicked, not because I wanted the throne for myself. I never wanted to be a king or a lord or anything like that. I only wanted…” Jaime fumbles for the words. What did he want? Glory? Honor? No one had ever asked him. “… to be a knight. To protect people.”

Gilly nods solemnly, taking his explanation at face value without hesitation.

Jaime resumes his exercises a little more thoughtfully. Of course that hadn’t turned out so well for him, had it? He had been a terrible knight in King’s Landing. He felt a lot more like one out here, only after he’s been dismissed from the Kingsguard. He senses dully that he ought to have given that a lot more thought -- what he wanted, and what he had gotten instead -- years earlier. If he had he might have left Kings Landing much sooner.

Gilly does know a few more things about him, as it turns out. She reveals that much at the end of their session that day. Sam has actually done well, has not dropped his shield once, and rushes to Gilly afterwards and hoists the child in the air victoriously while little Sam Kingslayer screeches with laughter. Then he hands the babe to Jaime so he could embrace Gilly. Sam hands off the toddler to him unthinkingly, with unexpected decisiveness, and Jaime finds himself suddenly staring down a curly-headed blonde boy with brown eyes that immediately widen and water. Startled, Jaime fumbles his grip, has to bring him closer to try to get some leverage with his golden hand and the babe is having none of it. Little Sam pushes at his shoulders with both fists as though desperate to escape and twists his whole body back with a shocking amount of strength. Then the child begins to wail, loud and long.

Little Sam’s mother snatches him from Jaime’s arms quickly. He starts to stammer out an apology, that he had never held a small child before, that Sam had given him the babe unexpectedly, he wasn’t doing anything _wrong_ , but Gilly cuffs Big Sam on the ear and Jaime falls silent.

“You big knob,” she scolds, and noticeably lowers her voice. “The man lost three children, don’t go handing him a baby without so much as a by your leave.” Then she hoists the toddler up to her shoulder and carries him out, with a meaningful glare at the boy’s sheepish namesake. 

Which isn’t what he expects to hear from an outraged mother who caught the Kingslayer holding her son, in Winterfell of all places. And sympathy, well, that isn’t something he expects to find anywhere.

Anyway, he likes Gilly. So he is happy enough to show her how to hold a bow, and nock an arrow to it, when she asks. They teach boys and girls alike to fight North of the Wall, but her father had not wanted them to fight back, she had explained darkly. If she is going to be waiting around for the wight attack with everyone else she’d like to know some way to defend herself.

After that he trains with Gilly as well, when Sam brings her, and if anyone had voiced some of the same observations about her rabbit teeth he had himself thought when first he saw her, he might have clubbed them with his golden hand for it.

Sam brings other curious onlookers sometimes, Northerners who know his name and reputation very well, and they watch him fight with some combination of suspicion and awe. Sometimes they get up the nerve to ask him about his blade, about his golden hand, or about Sam’s shield technique, and sometimes he answers them.

They are beginning to be used to him now, seeing him pass through the courtyard and disappear into the Broken Tower, seeing him at meals and in the corridors. Jaime still doesn’t exactly belong here, but he isn’t quite so out of place as he was. He wears the layers of winter gear more and more comfortably, but he can sometimes forgo the hat and gloves without feeling he’ll freeze bits off. Clearing frost out of his beard is not something he ever planned to be used to, but there are worse things, he knows.

Between the council meetings and his training sessions not an idle moment remains. He takes the evening meal with Tyrion and sometimes Sam and occasionally also Gilly, and even there they talk of their books and the plans for the siege. When he falls into his bed at night there is scarcely time to close his eyes before he falls deeply asleep.

Though it is gloomy and hard work, it is peaceful for him in its way. He is useful again, doing the things he does best for a cause he has no doubt is just. For now they are safe here, and that is a comfort even knowing it will not last.  

* * *

Through all of this, their most unknowable enemy approaches, and though they have prepared as much as they can they have no more than the barest information about the opposing forces. The news from other holds is confusing on top of disheartening. The horde of wights and beasts had overrun Last Hearth more or less immediately after breaking through the wall, and utterly destroyed Karhold no more than a week later. Next had been the Dreadfort, what was left of it, and after that Hornwood, the nearest hold to Winterfell, more than a month ago. The next target should have been Winterfell by all reckonings, but instead they seemed to retreat back into the line of devastation beyond which nothing living remained, and there was no news of them for weeks.

Jon’s council has speculated much on why they had pulled back. Perhaps they are awaiting the deepening of winter before venturing further South. Perhaps they gather their strength to dash for the Neck, where they would cut off all of the North from the rest of Westeros. This is where Jaime has decided to place the Golden Company, now that Nestor has acknowledged his claim to Cersei’s contract. Already his forces are marching to the Twins, where they can guard the North from Euron’s armies and guard the South from the Night’s King. With any luck they won’t be crushed between them.

Jaime has carefully watched the reports of wight army’s movements to guard against this possibility. Large armies move slowly, even armies that don’t appear to need sleep, and it makes sense to him that they would head for the Neck, but three weeks is a long time with no sightings even in winter. He and Tyrion send frequent messages to the Golden Company to warn them that the enemy could appear at any moment, and issue calls to Lannister bannermen to combat Euron if needs be. They have no reply from the Westerlands, and Jaime has no idea if he even has any bannermen loyal to him at this point, but they send the messages anyway.

Now the latest ravens report the horde popping up at Deepwood Motte instead, nowhere near the Neck -- in fact on the other side of Winterfell, hundreds of miles out of the way no matter which direction they are heading. It makes no sense. Why would they go West instead of South, and why go around Winterfell in an arc rather than over it? If they are trying to systematically level the North it would have made more sense to divide their forces, send one east and one west, not double back and go the other way.

Davos Seaworth says it is foolishness to expect sense from dead things, but still it nags at Jaime. The behavior of the horde is decidedly odd. They stay in a single group that swarms one place and then another, and when they have utterly destroyed a Hold they move on, leaving nothing living or dead behind. No garrisons, nothing to hold territory. They just move to the next target. This is like no invasion he has ever encountered.

He is not the only one unsettled by this strange behavior. The day those ravens come with the news from Deepwood Motte, Brienne speaks up in the council for the first time. Her expression is troubled, he had noted in one of his quick glances her way, but that’s no different from anyone else at that table. What she is thinking, however, is completely different.

“What do they want?” she says thoughtfully, to no one.

Nobody at the table seems to have heard her; they go on discussing how to rearrange their scouts and defenses, assuming now that the attack will come from the West. An important topic to be certain, but Jaime would very much like to know what Brienne has to say.

“Wait,” he says to the man addressing him, and turns to Brienne. “What were you saying?”

She blinks at him and shifts uncomfortably. “Nothing,” she says back, her shoulders collapsing in as she shrinks in her seat. For such a large person, she seems to make herself as small as she can, whenever there are this many people in a room, particularly if they are looking at her.

“Not nothing,” Jaime says quietly but firmly. “I think it’s important.”

Suddenly everyone is looking at Brienne, and all other lines of conversation have abruptly stopped. She has not spoken up before during one of these sessions, never once. Her eyes dart from one side to another, and Jaime realizes that he has very much put her on the spot.

Sansa thoughtfully comes to her rescue. “I’m sure Brienne means to say that they must have a goal of some kind, these White Walkers. You're all so certain they're coming here, but how do we know that? What is it they want?”

“They’re not men, they’re beasts,” Lord Glover dismisses her irritably. “Shall we stop and ask the wolves what they want?

“We know what they want,” Davos Seaworth explains in a more kindly tone. “To kill us.”

“But why?” Brienne speaks up again. She looks a little bit miserable for disagreeing. But she has clearly been wondering this for some time. “There must be some reason, however base. Even beasts do not kill for no reason. Beasts want to eat, and these don’t seem to eat anything. Do they want our homes, our lands? They aren’t taking them, they move on. What will they do after all of us are gone? Live here?”

This seems a good question to Jaime, and he turns to Jon. “I agree with Lady Brienne. Did you not just say that they have strategy? Did they not plan and prepare to break through the wall and invade? That is not the behavior of beasts.”

Jon looks skeptical. “I don’t see that it matters. We can’t exactly ask them what they want. They are not human, and we cannot negotiate with them. They only want to kill the living.”

“Which living? Those in the North? In Westeros? All everywhere in the world?” Sansa says, reasonably. She and Brienne exchange knowing looks that indicate they have had this discussion before. “If that is their goal they could do it anywhere, but they go to the strongholds, and only particular ones. There must be something they want in these places.”

Jaime completes her thought. “If we know what they want, then we’ll know where they are going, and perhaps how to stop them.”

Brienne’s blue eyes meet his across the table. There is a light there now that wasn’t there moments ago. His support means something to her after all, it seems.

Then he moves on to an idea that both of them would be reluctant to voice. “It may be that they will be satisfied with the North, and we can evacuate below the Neck. Build a new Wall to make sure they stay.”

“We will not abandon the North!” young Lord Cerwin speaks up, distinctly unhappy.

“I’m not thrilled with the idea myself,” Jaime says dryly, “but it should be proposed.”

Predictably, none of the Northerners are in favor of this proposition, and attack it all the more forcefully for a Southerner having proposed it. The original question, of what the dead may want, is quickly forgotten.

Brienne is quiet again after that. But her eyes flicker up to his face every now and then, searchingly.

 

* * *

 

The next day, when Sam arrives to sparring practice, he brings along with him both Gilly and Jon Snow.

He can hear the three of them approaching at a distance, talking and laughing with each other. They have the easy camaraderie of long friendship between them, and when they come in Jaime at first does not recognize Jon with a smile on his face. He wasn’t sure the Stark bastard _could_ smile.

But he does with Sam, as relaxed and at ease as Jaime has ever seen the usually-glowering young man. Sam seems to have that ability with people, to find some point of humor and light in even the darkest times.

“I heard you are giving Sam some training,” Jon says. “As his former trainer, I thought I might check his progress.”

He laughs when he says it, with a teasing tone. Jon is much friendlier outside the War Council and away from his siblings. As the King in the North the young man is almost comically grim and stiff, but here he seems an ordinary young man, gently ribbing his self-effacing friend.

Jon settles down casually against the wall, taking in the scene while Sam straps on some guards for his joints.

“Sam’s told me a few things about you,” he says.

Long used to capital politics, Jaime will be guarded with Jon even in this casual setting. Amiable as the young man may suddenly seem, it’s unclear if he’s speaking as Jon Snow or the King in the North.

“Oh?" he responds casually. "Nothing too terrible, I hope.”

 Jon watches his reaction. “He says you are kind. Not very _nice_ , but kind.”

Jaime doesn’t know how to react to that. It sounds like the sort of thing Sam would say, but _kind_ is not a word that has ever been applied to him.

Sam is nervous when they begin their spar. He is not so nervous for Gilly, who has watched many times. Clearly this is different. Jon may be his good friend, but he also deeply wants to impress him. His eyes keep darting over to the side where he sits. This is no way to win a fight, and Jaime does not go easy on him. “Pay attention,” he says sharply, and comes at him from every direction at once, to force him to forget his friend’s presence.

Sam fumbles and drops his shield on the next solid blow, and his face turns bright red. It’s as though he’s forgotten everything he’s learned in these last weeks. But Jaime’s learned some patience from these spars, and he knows Sam will do well if he can keep him at it. He prompts the sweaty, red-faced Tarly to pick up his shield and try again, and he comes even faster the next time. If he doesn’t want to get hit in the face, he’s going to have to start blocking effectively.

Which is quickly evidenced by his being hit in the face with the flat of Jaime’s sword.

He can hear Jon beginning to object behind them, suggesting he go easier. Jaime shoots him an imperious glare. He may be King in the war council, but here he will let Jaime take the lead, or he can leave. Gilly says something to Jon in a low voice, and he quiets, though he remains unhappy.

Sam gradually gets it together. In a few minutes he is blocking Jaime’s strikes consistently, turning to meet him as he pivots around to attack from behind. Eventually he even remembers he’s holding his own sword. For the first time without prompting, Sam stabs out with it and catches Jaime’s right arm, a glancing blow but a legitimate strike.

“Nicely done!” Jon calls out from the sidelines, and Sam flushes with pleasure.

Jaime senses it would be wise to end this on a good note for him, and pleads out. “You’ve wounded me, I yield.”

“Did you let me have that one?” Sam asks him quickly, as Jon is rising to congratulate him.

“Of course not,” Jaime says back, offended. “I never let anyone hit me if I can help it.”

Sam turns back to his friend twice as pleased, and Jon is effusive in his praise. A big smile creases his face. “You’re a different man than the one who left the wall, I’m astonished at you.”

Sam demures, though not enough to cover how proud he is of his progress. “I have an amazing trainer, he made me look good,” he says. “I always start off terrible and by the end I'm... transformed,” he explains.

“Confidence,” Jon diagnoses correctly. “If you could forget to be so hard on yourself at the start, you’d be steady all the way. You always come through at the end, Sam Tarly. Don’t doubt it for a moment.”

Sam stands a little taller under his friend’s praise, and Gilly beams at him.

Oddly, Jaime does too. It pleases him to see Sam not cowering so much. Perhaps he won’t be giving away Heartsbane after all. He really isn’t cut out for a battlefield, but he’ll be able to defend Gilly and little Sam if needs be, maybe man one of the inner walls, do his bit, and that’s something.

Jon turns to Jaime, and is drawing something out of his coat. Jaime expects possibly some sort of gratitude for the turn he’s done his friend, but that isn’t quite what he has in mind. Snow has his own practice blade, an approximation of a greatsword, long and heavy, though dull. He holds it pointed down and two-handed, in a stance of polite challenge.

“Mind if I give it a go?” he says, that easy smile fading into something a little more serious. “Sam and Tyrion said you were sparring again, and I’m in need of some practice myself.”

 _I’m to be tested in many ways today,_ Jaime considers. He does not have to accept, there is no advantage for him win or lose. But he is curious, curious about Snow’s skill and how his own would match it. Jon must be curious as well to see what’s become of the once-mighty Jaime Lannister, and if he can still fight well enough to be allowed back onto the field. Which he wants more than anything.

He accepts the challenge, nodding wordlessly.

Sam sits at the wall now, Gilly beside him. Both are plainly excited. They whisper to each other, and Jaime has a brief sinking conviction that they are looking forward to Jon beating him. Well, they will see about that. He’s not going to make it easy for him, for certain.

Jaime throws aside his overcoat and scabbard for freer movement, and rolls his shoulders. His own practice blade is a shortsword, with far less reach, but much faster. Jon readies his blade more slowly, lifting it steadily and with enough strength to wield it well. It will be an interesting match, in the least. It has been years now since he has dueled a stranger of any skill.

Jon moves first, charging in hoping to catch him unexpectedly.

It’s true that Jaime has lost much of his strength and advantage with the loss of his right hand, but he has not lost his eyes. He’s seen every fine fighter in Westeros, a dozen styles and schools of swordsmanship, and fought more duels than Jon has ever witnessed. Limbs can be lost or broken and stiffened with age and injury, but experience, and the ability to read one’s opponent, cannot be cut off so easily.

Jon handles a blade well enough, but he is a soldier, not a duelist. He is accustomed to the chaos of a battlefield where a fight will be a few moments at a time, not a sustained and controlled duel. He fights like most Northerners do, brute force and no finesse. It’s not dissimilar to Brienne’s style, with his two-handed blade and powerful swings, but he hasn’t her skill: she is more patient, and has more endurance. Brienne can take any amount of punishment, wear an opponent down, and crush them to bits. Jon comes in hard and smashes through defenses quickly, before his opponent can put up a strategy. But a sustained contest will be different. He’s unused to facing someone who could withstand that initial volley and throw something unexpected back at him.

Jaime can tell all of this in the first minute of their duel.

Instead of meeting his two-handed blows, which he won’t have strength enough to withstand very long single-handed, Jaime sidesteps them. It’s easy enough; Jon’s heavy blade and battle stance announces every move well ahead of time. The approach is risky – if he reads him wrong, Jaime will pay a heavy price. A single misstep will end this fight in one blow, a drawback of not being able to effectively parry.

He evades two massive swings and watches. The first swoops dangerously above his head, and the second crashes into one of the weapon stands and sends it flying. The King in the North holds nothing back, each blow is everything he’s got. But he’s more wary than Jaime would have predicted. Jon’s eyebrows go up right away, noting that he isn’t blocking him. To his credit, he reels in his swings, keeping them tighter to his body, leaving him less open to riposte. He also slows down considerably, conserving his energy in response to Jaime’s defensive strategy. He feints more, to try to force Jaime to expend more energy in unnecessary dodges. _Not a **complete** idiot, then._

Jaime attempts his own feint, seeming to stumble in one of his quick steps. Jon brings an overhand chop straight down at his back which he manages to deflect sidelong with a quick swipe, and then redirects his balance into an attack. Jamie scores a hit against Snow’s chestguard while the younger man is off balance. Jon makes a face and steps back.

“One for you,” Jon concedes, and makes another face when Sam and Gilly cheer. “Hey, whose side are you on?” he accuses them lightly.

Sam calls back cheerfully. “The one who’s going to be beating me up again when you’re done!”

Jaime finds himself smiling back at them. It’s a small thing, this, but it feels surprisingly good. There hasn’t been anyone cheering for him in a very long while.

Jon comes in hard for the next round, wide swings that drive Jaime back and back. The sweeping blows will not allow him to sidestep, he can only jump straight backwards. He can see that he’s being herded into a corner where he will not be able to dodge his way out. The young king is determined to cross blades with him, knowing he will overpower his opponent. Changing tactics, Jaime darts in close and catches the larger blade in a backswing with his golden hand. Sparks fly as the dull iron grinds against the gold and Jon is thrust aside, and startled enough to stagger back. Jaime stays on the advance and tries to score a blow as Jon falls back, but Snow kicks out instead, which he walks right into.

 _Oof_. All the air leaves him when Jon’s boot catches him in the sternum and Jaime falls sideways to the floor. He rolls quickly back to his feet and just barely misses catching a practice blade to the head.

 _The King in the North also plays to win,_ Jaime notes. That would have done him injury.

He starts to parry Jon’s swings. As expected, Jaime can’t fully counter them, and it quickly drains his strength, but he doesn’t break his guard either. It gives him a burst of confidence he just manages to conceal. Jon advances relentlessly, pressing the advantage, trying to batter him back into the wall where he can’t maneuver. But Jaime is less overpowered than he appears. Just as the wide two-handed swings are starting to open up and the younger man is working to bash the sword from his hand, he tries an old trick he had last used with The Hound during a tourney -- with a burst of strength he meets and stills the larger sword and pushes back, sliding along the blade’s flat side past the parrying hooks and clear up to the guard. He traps Jon’s hands across his body so that he is forced to jump back to free himself. The very second he changes direction, before he’s quite got his footing, Jaime strikes with all the strength he can muster.

He spins, putting his whole body into the blow, and knocks Jon back head over heels with a strong smack to his collar.

A real, proper win. Jaime grins, his blood pounding excitedly as he points his practice sword to Snow’s throat and accepts his yield. That much is probably unnecessary and a bit obnoxious, but it feels damned good. It has been long enough since a real victory that he is going to enjoy every second of an opponent at his feet.

He does give a hand-up to Jon afterwards, who does not seem to take the loss personally. On the contrary, he seemed to enjoy it, in his own thoughtful sort of way. “That was a good fight. Would you be willing to go again sometime? No one wants to try very hard to beat me right now, for some reason,” he says dryly.

Jaime smirks. “It will be my pleasure to beat you anytime you want to fight.”

Fortunately Jon laughs. “We’ll see! Next time I’ll make sure to win.”

Jon goes back to Sam and Gilly, calling them fickle friends for cheering at his loss.

Jaime turns to find Brienne standing in the doorway to the Broken Tower, her long cloak framing her armored form, the afternoon sun haloing her blonde head with warm white light.

She is smiling, that faint secret smile of hers, and it stops his breath in his chest. How long has she stood there? He hopes with all his heart that she saw his victory.

It seems that she has, for Brienne blurts out excitedly, seemingly against her own will, “You fight with your left hand! I didn’t know you could.”

She saw! But Jaime must bite down on his initial reply, which would have been _I can’t truly_ \-- compared to what he used to be able to do, that was a poor showing. Instead he simply shrugs and says, “I’ve been practicing.” With as much casualness as he can, he sheaths his sword at his right side, something that fortunately he can do much more smoothly now than the last time she saw him wield a blade, and approaches her.

“You must have worked hard,” she follows more quietly, tempering her reaction. But she looks genuinely pleased, and it has sincerely alarming effects on his pride. It is all he can do not to grin like a fool. “Before long you’ll be as good as you ever were with the right.”

That much he can’t let pass - it is too deep a wound for him. “No, I’ve been working at it ever since our journey years ago, and I’m afraid this is as much as I can do.” He smiles back a bit sadly. “You haven’t seen me at my best, and I fear now you never will.”

Brienne blinks and grows serious. “I have seen your best, Ser Jaime. It wasn’t with a sword in your hand.”

A foolish sentiment, and it renders him completely speechless. His throat tightens, and he has to look away from her. On the other end of the tower, Sam and Jon are looking at his shield together, Sam eagerly explaining what he has learned.

Brienne looks too, and nods towards the pair of them. “Sam Tarly told us you have been training him, and Gilly too. It’s good of you to do that.”

It isn’t really, Jaime thinks. At least, he isn’t doing it out of some goodness of his heart. He just needed something to do with himself. Pretending otherwise in front of Brienne, who is truly good, makes him feel a little ridiculous.

Sam appears to be speaking highly of him to the other Northerners, and to Brienne. Sam is the one who is kind. Jaime reminds himself to do something for Sam at first opportunity. _Get him a pie from the kitchens, maybe._

“And you don’t mind training women, he says?” Brienne looks cautiously interested in this.

 _Two pies. Get Sam two pies_. “Of course not,” he says dismissively, and finds himself almost pontificating on the topic. “They’re in as much danger as the rest of us, if they want to help there’s no reason to turn them back. It’s not as though we have soldiers to spare.”

She nods, and follows on with conviction. “Exactly. Jon convinced the Northern lords to let their daughters train and fight, but unfortunately none of our own masters-at-arms will work with them. They leave them standing around doing nothing. Lady Sansa has been after me to teach them instead, but I’m afraid I’m not a very good trainer.”

He disagrees. “You’re a great trainer. I’ve seen how Podrick has improved.”

She waves this comment off, passing over the topic purposefully. “Sansa has proposed that you be given space in the Inner Yard to work with your students, and with the girls who want to learn. If you’re willing?”

His students? They must think him a more deliberate teacher than he actually is. But he seems to be doing it anyway, and the practice yard would be a lot better for his own training than the Broken Tower. And it so obviously pleases Brienne that he would agree to it twice if he could. “All right, I accept. I can’t promise miracles, most of them aren’t going to be swordsmen. But we can make squires of them, at least.”

She warns him gently. “They’re not much for squires in the North. Nor knights.”

“They’ll learn.” He shares this smile with her. They are fellow knights in the strange North, allied among strangers once again. “Squires to resupply the field, distribute weapons, run messages – the use will be clear enough in time.”

There is an immediate camaraderie between them that is easy to fall into, easy and comfortable. It makes him hopeful; maybe still they can get back the friendship they once had.

“Perhaps we could train them together, you and I?” he offers hopefully. “Three hands are better than one.”

Brienne’s face darkens, and now it is she who looks away. “Perhaps Podrick can help. I have other duties just now.”

He hates to see this shadow over her expression, whatever its source. It’s happened every time he’s seen her in Winterfell; just when Brienne begins to relax she suddenly grows distant and troubled.

“Brienne, we should talk –“

She avoids his eyes as she interrupts. “I must go. Sansa needs me.”

Perhaps it is his adrenaline left over from fighting, or his frustration has been boiling too long to contain any more, but instead of politely withdrawing Jaime finds himself grabbing her by the arm, very much like she had once held him back at the Dragonpit, when she needed to get through to him.

“No, she doesn’t,” he says insistently. “You know she doesn’t.”

Brienne looks down to where his hand grips her arm, and then back up at him, both surprised and defiant. She sets her jaw with the obstinate willfulness he knows so well, but her eyes are softer, and her forehead creased with regret. She is struggling with herself, he can see it. He knows her too well.

Jaime is overwhelmed with the force of it then, this thing that is between them. It hits him as a pure unfiltered blast of undifferentiated feeling, disappointment and frustration and longing all tangled up with a much older and unnamable bond between them, a magnetic pull that is never stronger than when they stand so near one another.

He opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He is a Lannister, famous for their sly tongues and gilded words, and never in his life has he had so much difficulty putting words together.

Before he can try, behind him Jaime hears Jon call out to her. “Lady Brienne! I would speak with you.”

Brienne makes a face, a cringe that is quickly wiped away. She seems in no more hurry to talk to Jon than with him. Possibly less. Her eyes make a quick arc between the two of them, Jon and Jaime, as though unsure which of them she should enlist to help her escape the other.

Confused by this reaction, Jaime lets her go, and she takes several steps back, exhaling. Before she can escape, Jon is there, circling around to stand between her and the door.

She tries still to lure him away, hustling him towards the door with her great height an effective bulwark against his conversation, but Jon seems in such a hurry to get her attention that he does not wait for them to be clear of prying eyes and ears. “Have you considered Tormund’s proposal?” he asks her.

It gives Jaime a nasty jolt. Proposal?

Jaime is not the only one jolted. Brienne is mortified, her whole body seems to wince, and her eyes flicker over to his, taking in that he is obviously listening.

She turns her back on him and lowers her voice considerably, but Jaime is still close enough to hear her answer. “I am still weighing it, my lord. Please, could we -- ?”

Jon follows closely beside her as Brienne shuffles quickly through the door. Jaime can hear them easily as they walk into the courtyard. “He has already waited some time. You should speak with him about it, if you have concerns.”

Jaime trails them at a remove. He’s not intending to follow, but he’s so focused on the conversation that it lures him right out of the broken tower and into the courtyard, watching this scene with some fascination. What he took for bragging from that ginger wildling is an actual marriage offer? And Brienne is considering it?

Yet she does not sound at all pleased about it. She huffs unhappily at Jon’s encouraging words. “We spoke. Or rather, he spoke and I tried to get a word in edgewise. He doesn’t listen.”

“They have different ways,” Jon explains. “In the far north their courtship is a little bit more…. aggressive. They tend to carry off women they want, so he’s actually being quite restrained, believe it or not. Perhaps you can tell me what the trouble is; are you already promised?”

She must be saying no; she shakes her head, but her answer is too quiet to hear.

“Are you willing to marry?”

Jaime is fully expecting her to say an unequivocable “No”, and he is very surprised when she says something entirely different.

“Perhaps someday, but not now, not right at the start of a war!”

 _Not now?_ Not a no, but a _not now_? Flummoxed, Jaime forgets that he has been trying not to be caught watching them and simply stares. Did he hear that right?

Jon does not seem to think anything of this monumental revelation. “But you will marry?”

Brienne shifts uncomfortably just the same. “I’m not opposed to marriage as a rule. But the eve of battle seems not the time.”

Jaime is taken aback. Brienne is such an unconventional woman that he has always assumed that she would have no interest in marriage. She has her island to go home to, and could defend it at swordpoint even after she tires of being a knight. A husband would be more of a bother than an advantage, when she could be the head of her own house instead.

On the inside, a large part of him is fairly dancing with glee. _Not! Opposed! To marriage!_ The rest of him is very firmly telling that part to be quiet.

Jon, meanwhile, is still negotiating on behalf of his friend. “Would you consider an engagement then, to be consummated in peacetime?”

“I…” she hesitates a moment, almost girlishly. Then she hardens. “I will be fighting in the war, come what may. Who is to say who will even be alive afterwards?”

“Exactly so,” Jon says. “And perhaps you should take the opportunity for a marriage alliance with a man who desires you, while you can?”

“I should take what I can get, then?” Oh, she is starting to be angry now. Even from behind, with only a little of her face visible, Jaime can see an alarming color is rising in her pale cheeks.

“You must admit, there are limited opportunities for an…unconventional woman. And Tormund is willing and eager to be your husband. Would that be so terrible?”

Brienne doesn’t say anything, but her feelings are plain enough in the hunch of her shoulders. She is uncomfortable with the entire situation, and not especially fond of Tormund. But she is clearly hesitant to speak ill of Lord Snow’s friend, which makes Jaime angry. It is an impossible position they put her in, where she cannot openly rebuke unwanted affection from a good friend of the lord she is sworn to serve.

Jaime very nearly barges in to say as much, and only restrains himself by the memory of the way she had shaken herself out of his grasp only moments ago.

Jon sounds gently encouraging. “He’s a good man. He would be a good husband, I promise you. And it would be a help to us, as you know. Our alliance with the wildlings is an arrangement of convenience and necessity more than of trust. Family bonds would cement their loyalty. To strengthen our alliances we must intermarry, and Tormund is much respected among all the wildling tribes. It would be a great favor to me if you would consider it.”

Now that is a concern. Jaime can be confident that Brienne would have no attraction to the oafish ginger wild man, not when her heart once belonged to the rather prim and pretty Renly Baratheon. But duty? Duty is another matter. She could be persuaded to marry for duty.

Meanwhile Brienne is ready to make her escape, fidgeting from one foot to the other.

“I will consider it, my lord,” Brienne explains quickly, and rushes away, her cloak billowing behind her.

Jaime lies awake that night thinking on it, Brienne married off to some wildling. Not a King of the wildlings or even a particularly important one. Not a lord or a commander of armies or a great hero, not even a hedge knight! Just some common hairy wildling with no land or money or title to his name. Important in some fashion, he supposes, important enough to matter to the rest of the rabble from beyond the Wall. But South of the Wall he matters purely because Jon Snow is his friend and Jon Snow is King in the North. If Jon wants Brienne to marry his friend he can make it happen, taking advantage of her good nature, her loyalty to his family. He can make her give up her dreams of being a knight and let Tormund take over her beautiful island, this crude barbarian who has never ruled anything, and when the Evenstar dies the title will go to him and not Brienne, who deserves it. Or maybe Jon will give him a castle somewhere in the frozen North before the war’s even ended and he’ll put Brienne in it and set her to having hairy ginger babies, and Jaime will never see her again.

It is not a purely unselfish concern; of course he wants Brienne for himself. Although he has trouble imagining that future with her, what it would look like, what he really wants to have with her. He has had such abnormal relations that he can’t quite picture how it would be, to openly court someone, how they would be together. He just wants. His heart is turned towards her like green grass to the sun. He will take whatever she would give him and be glad of it. Comrades, friends, lovers, he’d marry her if he could. He can’t imagine any of these things, but he wants them with a blind longing he cannot explain.

Though she has been distant, being at Winterfell with her has been a balm to his wounds. The way he had felt today when she saw him win a spar, he cannot remember feeling so purely delighted and proud. That she could vanish from his life completely and for good has spoiled any lasting pleasure of that moment. The sweetness of it only reminds him what is at stake, and what he may lose forever.

And lose her to a man she doesn’t even want. It’s completely intolerable. Jaime turns it over and over in his mind and tosses and turns in his bed. There is surely some way to get her clear of it. But she does not want his help. Would it only drive her further from him to intervene? She did after all approach him today, for the second time after so many weeks of avoidance. It may be that he must continue as he has been doing and hope that she will approach him again, and he might be able to speak to her about it.  

* * *

 

After that afternoon Jaime begins to use the inner training yard for his work with Sam, and with the other refugees who wanted to learn. He hopes that he might see more of Brienne there, but in fact he sees even less of her than he had before. She does not reappear at the war council nor training in the yard. When he checks the duty rosters he finds she is leading a patrol outside the keep, exchanging scouts to the North and west of Winterfell watching for the enemy in the high treetops.

Jaime tells himself she would have joined this effort anyway, but he knows that she must have volunteered for these duties just after their last conversation. Something that would take her outside the Keep altogether, where she will not come across either him or Tormund in the training yard.

It’s still a shame that she would not assist him, as he could have used the help. The Starks have begun sending him some of the daughters of the North, fierce and determined but also very young and completely inexperienced. Many of them have never even held a weapon, far behind where even Sam had begun. Before very long he is instructing a whole crowd of them at a time, setting them to exercises, pairing them off to spar.

Jaime had come North with every intention of making himself useful, and had imagined a prominent role in commanding the armies of the living. He had **not** intended to find himself training a vagabond, half-equipped crowd of flea-bitten Northerners, mostly women and children, on how to hold a blade and fire an arrow. Winterfell is crammed with refugees from fallen Northern holds who have nothing better to do than huddle together in the courtyard and wait for the dead to come, and the tension has lead to fistfights over the tightly-controlled food and water that will need to hold through the winter. So the Starks are eager to give them something to do with themselves, and increasingly, they seem to be sending them to him.

But what else is he to do? They just keep **showing up**. And the more that join the fighting the louder the clamour becomes, and so more people hear the noise and come to investigate, and Jaime doesn’t want any more trainees but they come with their own axes and blades and arrows from fallen fathers and sons and they looked to him for direction, and nearly by reflex he points them to another student of equal skill or lack of it, and sets them to practicing. He has been raised to lead, as much as he has avoided doing it, and it comes naturally to him.

He has seized fully on the idea of making most of them squires. Granted squires are most often ten-to-twelve year old boys, but there was no reason why they had to be, as Podrick Payne showed. The North does not have a squire system the way they do in the South, where young boys are apprenticed to experienced fighters and support them on the field. Northerners will train their sons in their own keeps, and perhaps take their sons and wards with them to war, but if you did not have a soldier father or were warded to one, or if you were a girl, there would be no battlefield training for you. Meanwhile Jaime is most accustomed to using squires to run supplies and messages, sharpen blades, manage armor repair, even perform basic battlefield medicine in a pinch. Such skills can be taught relatively quickly alongside the use of a blade, and when they are holding Winterfell against endless waves of wights such supporting roles will be indispensable.

These northern women are tough enough and eager to be of use, and Jaime knows there is nothing worse than this idle purposelessness before a siege. It had been driving him mad before he started training Sam, and he at least knows how to defend himself. Even if they will never be expert swordsmen they will have a better chance to live a little longer if they can at least hold a weapon.   

He’s ended up a commander again, though of a very different sort. His soldiers now are women and girls and drunks and vagabonds, common farmers and cooks and servants of fallen holds. The weaker ones fletch arrows and set practice dummies and targets for the stronger ones. And from time to time the proper soldiers, in their own practices, will mingle with his group, and if Jaime asks them to demonstrate their skill for them they will happily comply.

It busies him enough that there isn’t time to worry about Brienne and Tormund Giantsbane, except in the small hours of the morning when he is too exhausted to rise from his bed and too troubled by his dreams to sleep, when he stares up at the ceiling and wonders how much time they have before death comes for them all.

He wonders if Brienne has decided yet, and how he will learn of it. If she will put the wildling off until after the siege, or deny him now, he may have no way of knowing it. If she accepts, he would probably learn it too late to do anything about it.

He wonders if he should tell Brienne, before they are all destroyed, that he loves her.

Or should he focus completely on keeping them all alive, in whatever way he can? 

Tangled up with these thoughts is a new worry, an idea that has been nagging at him for some time. It has to do with his terrible dreams of Tommen and Marcella and how he failed them. His children returned by dark magic, pleading with him to protect them, to be the father he never was to them. The dead army marches on Winterfell, and his dead children haunt him in his sleep.

It all begins to tie together in his mind to a terrible conclusion. For even awake, he is troubled with constant reminders of family, children, the things he could never have. Like little Sam Tarly, Sam and Gilly’s child, rescued from the ruin of Craster’s Keep. Sam had told him the whole troubling story. And then Brienne and Sansa had spoken up in the War Council, asking what the White Walkers may want, and he began to suspect.

What does any man want? What had his father always told him was more important than anything? Legacy, a future. A dynasty to last a thousand years.

_A thousand years._

Jaime has mentioned his suspicions to no one, for if he is wrong, the injury to Sam and Gilly would be horrendous. And if he is right…it would be far worse.

He had thought at first to bring his concerns to Tyrion, but after seeing Sam and Jon together, he thinks Jon might be the right person to decide what to do about it. He is Sam’s friend, and he was himself at Craster’s Keep beyond the wall. Perhaps he will know something that will prove Jaime wrong, which would be a relief.

* * *

After a particularly long and sleepless night he finds Jon in his quarters, before their council can begin for the day.

“I have been thinking on what Brienne and Sansa said in the Council.” Jamie lets himself in, surprising Jon at his midday meal. “About what the wights might want.”

Jon’s eyes slide to the door and back, plainly unhappy with the unexpected company. “Can it wait for our council to resume?”

Jaime inclines his head meaningfully. “I don’t think you’ll want it raised in your council. At least, not by me.”

Jon slouches down heavily in his chair. “All right. Go on.”

He closes the door behind him, not wanting anyone to overhear this conversation. Then he paces the room restlessly. “Your friend Sam told me of Craster’s Keep.”

“I believe he is your friend as well, now,” the boy king smiles.

 _He may not be after this,_ Jaime thinks regretfully. But Jon will need to deal with it sooner or later, and sooner is better.

“He told me about the babies. That Craster had been siring them in great numbers, and giving the boys to the wights. Why?”

Jon looks uneasy. “It was how he could maintain a steady hold beyond the wall, that was our theory. The wildlings stay on the move to stay ahead of the creatures, but Craster stayed in the same place. So long as he gave them his sons, the wights did not attack his homestead.”

“What did they do with them?”

“We never learned. Consume them, perhaps. We couldn’t exactly ask them.”

“Precisely.” Jamie leans on the table where Jon’s meal is spread and emphasizes: “How did he know to do it? None of these creatures seem to speak. How exactly did this arrangement come about?”

Jon shakes his head. “They must communicate somehow, enough to coordinate attacks. Perhaps their leader can speak. We just don’t know.”

“So this Craster struck a deal somehow with the Night’s King, all on his own, and made himself a little kingdom whose only purpose, so far as anyone can tell, is to give infants to the wights. As many as possible.”

“What exactly are you getting at?” Jon is moving on quickly from uneasy to worried.

“How long has Craster’s Keep stood? A generation, two? More?”

Jon thinks it over. “Long enough to be known to the Night’s Watch, to trade and sell supplies. The Watch records don’t say for how long, but Mormont was well familiar with them. Gilly can tell us more. We should ask the other wildlings as well, if there have been other settlements with similar arrangements.”

Now it is Jaime’s turn to look uneasy, and push back from the table. “Don’t ask the wildling girl of this.”

“Why not?” But his expression darkens before the words are out of his mouth. “Little Sam. Is that what you’re thinking? That the wights would do all this for a single babe? That’s ---“

“Worse than that.” Jaime stops in front of the window. “Tyrion has read all there is to read about the Long Night, and spoken to everyone here. Sam looked all through the Citadel for information.  No one knows how the Night was driven back into the North. Consider: what if there was not a victory but a truce? An arrangement?”

“That’s more or less what we’ve imagined it – that they stay in the land of always night, North of the Wall.”

“But _with a steady supply of babes_. What do the wights want? What does anyone want? To go on. To have children.”

“And the truce is broken.” Jon shakes his head. “It’s been thousands of years since the Long Night. Craster’s Keep has certainly not stood there that long.”

“There could have been many such Keeps. Your wilding nomads may once have given their share as well. According to Sam, they have a long tradition of not naming their babes until they reach two years of age.”

“So that they won’t become attached…” Jon has darkened considerably. “I can’t say these thoughts haven’t occurred to me, Lord Lannister. I have thought often of what I saw at Craster’s Keep. But it just doesn’t seem possible that the arrangement could be any larger than one corrupt and terrible man. There would be more record of a more elaborate agreement, at the Wall if nowhere else. When I was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch I spent a long time looking through the records and reading the words of my predecessors, and they said not a word of this.”

“Are there no secrets in the Night’s Watch?” Jaime’s gaze grows distant. “If it is anything like the Kingsguard, loyalty will take precedence over capturing the details in the record books. Especially shameful details.”

He himself had kept the secret of Aerys Targaryen for many years, and had never written it in the White Book, the most sacred document of their order. Hells, he had only ever told Brienne and Tyrion of it decades later. If anyone looked through those records now, they would never know the truth of what happened during the Sack of King’s Landing.

So Jaime can see how the actions of men desperate to save a kingdom, ones they weren’t particularly proud of, might be eventually lost to time.

“Aye, I think they might be very similar,” the King in the North says, in a strange tone.

Jon is looking at him with open curiosity now, and it explains some smaller looks he has been giving him for some time. There is something Jon wants from him, Jaime realizes, though what it might be he cannot imagine.

“It’s strange that you and I both find ourselves here,” the boy king says, joining him at the window. “I believe we both swore vows for life, and find ourselves removed of them by no fault of our own. And now we are in Winterfell, on the same side of a war.”

“...I can’t say it was by no fault of my own. I might have done a better job of keeping my vows,” Jaime admits, recalling how Tommen, his own misbegotten child, had dismissed him from the Kingsguard.

“I sometimes think I might have done better to keep my vows a little less well,” Jon says darkly, but he does not explain, and Jaime is not going to ask him of it.

What he wants to speak of is Brienne, and some way to convince Jon that she cannot marry his friend. Because she is needed in the war? Because she needs to marry someone else? Because he wants to marry her himself? He cannot think how to approach the topic.  

“I have some questions for you,” Jon cuts in suddenly, but what he says next Jaime is not expecting. “About Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Jaime blinks in surprise. “Prince Rhaegar? What of him?”

He has not thought of Rhaegar in some time. There had been times when he thought of him often, the Targaryen prince who had gone to the Trident to die and left him to guard his wife and children. It was a wound that had never healed over, failing Rhaegar. The young Jaime had loved and admired him, as they all had. None of the Targaryens had been more beloved than Rhaegar.

Jon hesitates. His open face contorts as he tries to decide how much to say.

But before he can decide, there is a sudden stir of voices outside, a shout of alarm, and farther beyond that, a strange high roar in the distance.

At once the two men turn to the window and search the distance for the thing they have both been dreading.

The chamber door bangs open. “My Lord! Outside the keep --”

But they have already seen it - a dark grey shape in the sky, growing steadily larger. Around it, a bright cloud that spreads below and before it, shimmering in the midday sun.

Viserion, the undead dragon, burning the Northern forests blue.

“Blast,” Jon says in a low voice. “We aren’t ready.”

“All our work to prepare the field…” Jaime clenches his fist. “They sent it ahead to clear the way.”

Viserion swoops in long arcs over the surrounding land, issuing long streams of flame, coming nearer and nearer with every run. Tactically it’s a sound move, scorching the territory outside to clear the way for their ground troops. These creatures are never so mindless as one would hope.

“Our measures to counter a dragon, the ballistas, are none of them ready?” Jon asks quietly, but he does not look hopeful.

Jaime shakes his head. “We might be able to fire one, but the others are half built. And honestly, I doubt it matters. We had a working Scorpion on the field at Highgarden and it did nothing. It’s too slow to load, too slow to aim and fire. And the one hit we scored wounded it only slightly. We would need a dozen of them to make a difference.”

Jon takes a deep breath and steels himself. “We must prevent panic, or all our work truly will be lost,” he says, hearing the shouts and cries outside intensify. “Lord Lannister, I will meet you at the gates.”

Jon turns from the window and strides away decisively, already issuing orders to the guards at the door. Jaime remains a moment, gripping the window frame, his eyes locked on the dragon. He has to prod himself to get moving, make some use of himself.

By the time he gets outside, Viserion’s unearthly screeches can be heard throughout Winterfell, and panic is already setting in. The refugees who had lined the courtyard are crowding into the inner keep, pushing and shoving their way in desperately. They will trample each other into the mud before long, and much of Winterfell’s guard is devoting themselves to maintaining what order they can. Jaime can hear Sansa Stark within, raising her voice above the din to urge people to remain calm.

Remaining calm will be a challenge for them all, including Jaime. Every roar from the dragon makes his heart race in his chest. He slows to a stop in the middle of the courtyard when he catches sight of it again over the walls, a long ribbon of blue-gray scales rushing by at incredible speed. He must force himself to keep walking, to take the stairs up to the top of the walls where he can get a better look.

Of course Tyrion is here already. He wouldn’t miss this.

Tyrion already spends much of his free time up here, when he is not going through the Citadel books with Sam or meeting at the War Council. He sometimes sits on the stone blocks that line the walls and looks out over the countryside. “It makes me feel tall,” he jokes. He has already pictured the siege a thousand ways, Jaime thinks, watching it play out over the landscape like one of his games of Cyvasse. He wonders if Tyrion had predicted the dragon would arrive first.

He finds him now standing at attention, entranced by the view. Jaime stands beside him and for a time they watch together in silence.

An unimaginable sight, a dragon. Their father, and their father’s father, and so on for generations, had known only stories of them. They had always been Tyrion’s favorite bedtime stories, in fact - he had begged Jaime for anything with dragons in it as a boy.

Tyrion shakes his head slowly. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Just like the old tales. You should have seen it before, when Danaerys rode him. They’re marvelous creatures.”

Jaime’s eyes narrow at it. Viserion, the turned dragon, its great wings stirring up winds for miles. The trees bend and wave beneath it, the whole forest dances at its feet.

“Marvelous is not the word for it,” he says with gritted teeth.

“Why Jaime, have you no appreciation for one of the wonders of the world?” Tyrion looks bemused. “Do you mean I’ve finally found something that scares my fearless big brother?”

No,” he says flippantly, but he can’t seem to move. He is frozen in place, eyes fixed on that monstrosity and its awful shrieking cry. All of his limbs have turned to lead. “Is that – is it the same dragon?”

Tyrion is confused for a moment, then understands. “No, the one you fought was Drogon. The big one. This is Viserion, the smallest of the three.”

Jaime laughs a little at that, nervously. Smallest. The beast is the size of a large house. The screeches it’s making echo for miles, and it bellows out a blast that turns the forest into a patchy blaze. He’s never seen anything like this strange blue flame. It’s mesmerizing, he cannot look away from it. Without noticing, he stops breathing, and remembers fire.

Fire. He’s seen enough fire for a lifetime now; green fire, red fire, and now blue. Wildfire and dragonfire, and men burning of it. His mind can fill in the details so easily, all the screams and smells and the ashy taste of the air that will take days to stop feeling the filmy coating of in his throat. It all blends together into one terrible scene, Aerys commanding the pyromancers and the great dragon looming over a field of fire and a dead dragon screaming in the distance. It’s all happening at once, all happening _now_

And then it’s as if he has jumped off the wall and plummeted, flying away from himself, just the way he had once escaped from a burning throne room by putting his mind elsewhere, only _faster_ and _farther_ and out of his control --

\-- then he is back, bent over the wall and sucking in air desperately. His heart pounds wildly, the fingers on his hand tingling as though it had fallen asleep. He notices his brother is shaking him urgently, and a few seconds later he can hear him, faintly at first.

“Jaime! What’s wrong?!” Tyrion is shouting at him, gripping him by the arm.

“I’m fine,” he says quickly, standing up straight again and flexing the fingers of his hand to wake them. He looks around them worriedly to find no one else within view. Thank the gods. No one else has seen.

“What just happened to you?” Tyrion is asking, but Jaime is in no mood to explain. It’s an act of pure will to push away from the wall and firmly turn his back on the screeching Viserion. Some part of his awareness remains there, gazing up at the undead dragon, but he will not let anyone see it. He may be a Lannister no longer, but he is still a proud man.

“You need to get those Scorpions working,” he tells Tyrion, as steadily as he can manage. “Even one of them could be enough to dissuade that thing from attacking the Keep.”

“One’s complete, but we need to move it into position. Several more are close to done.” Tyrion explains further. “I was going to direct their fire.”

“Direct it from inside the Keep,” Jaime says shortly. He has enough to worry about without Tyrion exposing himself to dragonfire. “But first come with me, we’re meeting Jon at the gates.”

Reluctantly Tyrion follows him down. Jaime tries to instruct his brother to stay inside, but Tyrion will not hear of it. “I’m not going to cower inside. Believe it or not, I’ve seen my share of battles now. You don’t have to protect me anymore.”

“I suppose I don’t,” he says back. But what he thinks is: _it seems nobody wants my protection now._ He also thinks, _I’m damn well going to give it anyway._  

Lord Glover and Lord Royce are shouting at each other as the Lannisters approach, and Jon looks pained, as does Tormund at his side. Yohn Royce argues that they should attack the dragon now, before the full force of the wight army arrives. Lord Glover thinks this would be madness, but does not wish to look weak in front of the Stark bannermen.

“My forces will falter before no enemy, but how can we possibly fight a dragon?”

“You can't,” Jaime cuts in. They turn to him looking surprised as always to see him there. “Believe me, I have faced them myself. A single dragon burned hundreds of my men in a matter of moments, and all of our weapons were useless. It would be foolish to send your bannermen out to their deaths now.”

Lord Glover blusters a bit as Jaime speaks, preparing to argue with him, but he soon sees that Lannister is agreeing with him. “Aye. I would not waste my men on a losing fight.”

Tormund Giantsbane nods slowly as well. “My people have faced losing odds many times, but we at least had a plan of attack. Now we have nothing.”

Jon looks from one face to another and makes a decision.  “Pull the men into the Keep. We will send them back out when it goes and hope there is still time to complete our work before the dead army follows.”

The other Northern Lords reluctantly signal their agreement. No one wants to turn tail and run, but they don’t want another Highgarden on their hands either.

Slowly, the patrols in the area around Winterfell pull back into the Keep. All of the people who once crowded the courtyard have gathered inside the main residence, where the stone walls shield them from dragonfire. Only a few brave souls man the gates to allow the teams of men to be lead quickly inside. Jaime too remains at the gates while the other Lords retreat to the Great Hall. The soldiers up on the battlements for once do not mind taking his orders, grateful for at least one commander braving the line of fire.

Jaime hovers just under the outer walls, watching the patrols arrive. Each group is a dozen or so men, mostly indistinguishable in their furs; scouts and diggers and carpenters with a soldier as their captain. He has come to recognize many of their leaders; though he still does not think much of Northern training, these at least are capable men. They seem no worse for wear coming in. Alarmed, and in a bit of a rush, but unharmed.

Without admitting to himself that he is doing it, he checks each face as it comes into the Keep to see if Brienne is among them.

The fourth group is only six men, and they are burnt. One has had the hair singed from his head, and another has discarded his winter cloak and is shivering violently, his skin burned badly on his back. Two of his fellows have to carry him in slung across their shoulders. When Jaime asks of the rest of their number they only shake their heads.

Jaime is growing increasingly nervous. He does not know if any of these groups have been led by Brienne, or if she had been on patrol this afternoon at all. Some patrols were still scheduled for after dark, or Brienne could be with Lady Sansa today. He will have to hope that she is somewhere inside the Keep, and not running for Winterfell with dragonfire at her back.

Another group arrives unharmed, though breathless from running a great distance back to Winterfell. They could hear the beast burning the forest behind them. There is no sign of a commander for this group, and again they shake their heads sadly.

The sixth and seventh groups are the last and furthest out from the Keep, and they do not return at all.

The guards on the wall, eager to come down off the battlements in case the dragon attacks the Keep directly, see no sign of anyone else returning. Jaime orders them (shouting up the wall) to stay put for now, unless they spy Viserion flying in their direction. In that case they can come down and report it to him in person. The guards are grateful at least for that command, and all the more careful to watch the horizon.

Leaving the men at the gate and battlements, Jaime runs back to the inner keep, where Sansa is directing the crowds to various places inside the castle where they might shelter.

He takes her by the arm and pulls her aside, ignoring her outraged expression that he would dare to touch her. “Please tell me Brienne is with you,” he cuts through her objections.

Suddenly her face falls. Sansa forgets immediately to be snide. “No. She hasn’t returned with her patrol yet? She went out with them this morning --”

Jaime swears emphatically and drops her arm, turning back out into the courtyard without waiting for her to finish.

There are shouts from the battlements along the East Gate just as he arrives there. “I see one group - about eight men -- running at breakneck speed. Get those doors open!” one of the watchmen calls.

“Let’s see them in and then you can take up your watch from the inner walls,” Jaime shouts back.

The eight are all men after all, what’s left of the seventh patrol. The sixth has come to a bad end, they tell him, speaking of waves of blue fire and at least one man carried off into the air in the dragon’s jaws.

 _Where is Brienne?_ Jaime had thought hers would be the seventh patrol, the one farthest out (it seemed right for her) but their commander is one of the few remaining who are being let in the gate. _What if it was the sixth? What if..._

Then he spies Podrick Payne hovering anxiously by the gate, and for a moment he is relieved. They’ve made it back after all. Maybe he has been looking for the wrong patrol.

Then he realizes Brienne isn’t with him, and he is very alarmed indeed.

Jaime pushes through the stream of the last patrol of scouts coming in as the gate closes behind them with a loud and final clang. There is no sign of anyone else returning, and they are barring the gate firmly and reinforcing it with what materials they have at hand.

When Pod sees him, the young squire’s face falls visibly.

“My lord, I’m sorry…” he says, looking dangerously near tears.

“Where is she, Podrick?!” He takes the young man by the shoulders, forcing him to raise his head.

“Still out there.” He nods towards the gate. “Milady said – she made us go back. The dragon was on us and she said to go back without her, and she ran the other way – she drew it off us.”

Jaime is horrified. “ _You left her_?”

“I’m sorry, I… she commanded me to do it and I… I had to lead the others back, you see. They didn’t know the way and Oswald was badly burned, we had to carry him. She said she was counting on me and I couldn’t let her down, Ser.” He swallows hard, eyes brimming with tears. “I hoped to find her here but I’ve been looking everywhere and – she’s not here. I think she’s still outside the walls. I’m so sorry Ser.”

 _Get ahold of yourself,_ Jaime tells himself firmly. _He followed her orders, as any squire would._

He takes several deep breaths and forcefully lightens his tone, hoping for the imitation of calm to ease his own nerves as well as Pod’s.

 “You did as you were bid, Podrick, and well done. Keep watch here and get word to me the moment she arrives, understand? The very moment. And make certain they open the gate for her.”

“Yes, ser.” Pod agrees eagerly.

“Tell me again where last you saw her.” He manages not to shake him again while Pod fumbles through a description. They had been west from the Keep, well out into the Wolfswood. There was a stand of white Alder trees where they had been attacked, and the dragon had burnt it black. When Pod saw Brienne last, she was running north-ish from there, towards Ironrath.

He tells Pod again to keep watch, and the lad nods with determination. He will stay in place, Jaime has no doubt. 

Jaime strides rapidly to the Great Hall, just managing not to break into a run. He’s trying not to think of fire now, but the blue flames will not leave him be. He knows what a man burning to death will do, his limbs pinwheeling in desperation, the wretched sound of his screams. He’s seen it too many times now. He doesn’t want to think of Brienne like that, engulfed in blue flame, but he can picture it all too well. His mind conjures the unimaginable at a moment’s notice, and it inspires a kind of panic he has never felt before. Like something’s grabbed him by the spine and shaken him. It feels like the end of the world, or at least the end of his world.

In the Great Hall where the evening meal is taken and the largest gatherings are held, the Starks and their bannermen are clustered at the center of the room. The commanders and captains are milling around uneasily. An attack is underway and they are eager to defend the keep. It will be easy, Jaime thinks, to recruit men to search the woods for those still missing.

Tyrion sees him approach, and his face falls. Sansa Stark too looks up from her seat next to Jon, and her hopeful expression quickly collapses. His anguish must be written all over his face.

Jon doesn’t notice it right away. “Lannister -- we heard the gates shut, have all the patrols returned?”

“No more are coming, but they haven’t all made it. There are still people out there,” he informs them. “We need to send a few men, no more than five, to locate the rest. We can still retrieve them safely without alerting the dragon.”

“Have you seen the forest burning? If they are outside the walls now they are lost,” Davos says grimly.

“Brienne of Tarth is still out there, and I know she will be alive,” Jaime insists. “Send your men.”

Sansa looks gravely distraught at this news, and looks beseechingly at her half-brother.

Jon looks sorry for it, but is resolute. “We are pulling everyone back, even the camp at Wintertown is coming within the walls. I can’t spare even five men.”

Without notice, Jaime’s voice shifts into the commanding and resonant tone of someone accustomed to being obeyed. “For this you can. I can lead them if you won’t.”

“Jon, please,” Sansa says quietly, her face gone white.

“We can’t spare you either,” the King in the North tells them both. “The gates are shut with orders to let no one out unless Viserion has gone.”

Jaime cannot remember being so angry. “You can’t possibly be considering leaving her out there.”

Even Jon blanches a little, and for a moment he looks unsure of himself. Looking around them, he responds in an undertone. “What do you suppose we should do? Wave at it from the ground? We don’t know how to fight a dragon.”

Jaime knows that, of course. He knows it better than anyone. But he’s not about to give up. “Clearly we’re going to have to figure it out eventually!”

The younger man steadies his tone. “If I spend my men now, there will be no one left to defend Winterfell when the full wight army arrives. We are looking at annihilation. It would be foolish to waste men on a fight we cannot win. You know this, Lord Jaime, you suggested it not an hour ago.”

Jaime curses himself silently for opening his fool mouth. “I recommended we not confront it directly, yes. But not to ignore people in need of aid. Would you truly abandon the woman who has given everything for your family, served your mother and your sisters faithfully at great risk to herself, who is worth at least **ten** of your men? For her you spare nothing when this is how we ended up with an undead dragon in the first place, when someone came out to save **your** fool arse beyond the wall!”

The room around them has gone quiet at these harsh words. Jon winces unhappily. Then he draws himself up and looks Jaime in the eyes. “I didn’t ask for that. I wouldn’t have risked all these lives to save mine, and I’m not going to risk them now. I’m sorry, I truly am.”

“She would do it for you,” he says coldly, and turns away. There will be no convincing any of them, Jon has dug in his heels and the rest will follow. It will be up to him then.

“Where are you going?” he hears Sansa calling out after him.

Jaime charges out of the Great Hall, across the courtyard, blindly down the halls of Winterfell, working at the laces of his coat on the way. There is no time to visit the armory or get properly supplied or even think through what he’s about to do. Every moment is precious. The wight dragon is burning the forest and attacking every man he sees and Brienne is out there somewhere, trapped, perhaps injured. Or burned. Brienne burning is the worst thing he can imagine. There is no hell for him after that, no worse fate could find him; the thought of it frightens him beyond reason.

He must find her. He has to see for himself that she still lives, and he cannot tolerate another minute without knowing it. He will have to find his way out of Winterfell and find Brienne himself.

In the back of his mind, he can hear the footsteps following down the hall, quick shuffling steps he has heard behind him since he was a boy of ten. Tyrion. He would normally slow for him, but there’s no time. He drops his bulky coat to the ground somewhere between the courtyard and his quarters and grabs the travel bag from the wall and starts stuffing things into it. He pulls on layers of armor and padding and straps on his scabbard over it. He never did practice fighting with the winter gear; he will have to forgo the bulkier items. Anyway he will be doing a lot of running very soon, which is bound to keep him warm. That and dragonfire.

Tyrion slaps open his door, angry and out of breath. “Jaime, you can’t – “

He cuts him off. “Help me with this, will you?” He’s in too much of a rush to lace his heavy boots one-handed, it takes long enough as it is and he’s even less steady now.

Tyrion shakes his head at him. “I saw you back there. You nearly passed out just looking at that dragon.”

“I’ve been cooped up inside too long. I’ll be much better off out there.” He tries to sound cavalier, but it comes not so easily now.

“Ten years ago I might have believed that. But you’re not the fearless fighter you were then, Jaime.  You can’t just throw yourself at every problem with a sword in your hand, not anymore.”

“Thanks for your support,” Jaime snaps, choosing to take insult. He finishes the damned laces himself, not well but effectively enough, and struggles into his overcoat.

“I’m not – you have to use your head now, not your hands,” Tyrion tries to explain. He’s not used to talking down his brother and he knows that when Jaime is upset he doesn’t listen. “You’ve said yourself there was no way to fight a dragon. If that goes for Jon’s patrols it goes double for you. Getting yourself burned to death won’t help Brienne.”

He pulls a glove over his good hand, a tricky task in the best of circumstances. “I have to do something! If Jon were sending soldiers with two hands who are eager to face dragons I would be happy to let them go instead, but he isn’t. Brienne is all alone out there and nobody is coming. She could be injured and unable to come back on her own and when the sun goes down she’ll freeze to death and _I will not let that happen,_ Tyrion, I won’t.”

“Or maybe you wait here for her to return. You said it yourself: there’s nothing you can do for her out there that she can’t do already. If Brienne’s alive and she’s half the knight you think she is then she can get herself back to Winterfell. This isn’t how you help her.”

“If she could come back on her own she would have done it by now, if for no other reason than to be sure Podrick came back safely.” Jaime straps Widow’s Wail to his side and shoulders his travel bag. “You don’t really expect me to stand by and do nothing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a dragon or the entire undead army or the Stranger himself out there, I’m going.”

Tyrion plants himself in the doorway, arms extended to either side.

“I know you will,” he says tightly. “You would do anything for the people you love. It’s the best and worst thing about you. But if you go out there and you die and I didn’t do anything to try to stop you I will never forgive myself. So you’re going to have to knock me over to get out of this room, Jaime. Will you do that?”

He takes a moment to contemplate him -- Tyrion’s arms out are barely long enough to fill the doorway, but he has every intention of stopping him. Small he may be, but the youngest Lannister can be an immovable obstacle when he means to.

“No,” Jaime admits, his voice laden with emotion. “But you know you can’t stop me for long, Tyrion. And if you delay me, and Brienne dies out there, **I** will never forgive **you**.”

Tyrion relents in slow motion, his arms dropping dejectedly to his sides. “All right. Try not to die, will you? I really don’t want to be the last Lannister.”

“I love you too,” Jaime says hurriedly, and takes off at a run down the corridor.

In the tumult of bodies pushing through the inner courtyard Jaime slips around the guesthouse and through the kennels to the Hunter’s Gate, the west side entrance of Winterfell that opens directly onto the Wolfswood. This gate is closed too, and guarded, but the walls are unmanned, fearing a pass by the great dragon.

Jaime finds his way up to the top of the wall and searches the horizon. No sight of the dragon in the distance, not in any direction. But the terrible screeches still tremble in the air, echoing in such a way that it is impossible to tell where it comes from. Blue flames dot the horizon both near and far, in all directions. Viserion could be anywhere now.

He drops down from the wall into the tallest snowdrift he can find and is immediately buried. The snow is heavy and wet and fortunately not frozen over; not the most comfortable landing but without injury. Hearing no alarm from the guards, he climbs out and sets off into the forest, brushing gobs of wet snow off as he goes.

He has his blade at his side and perhaps a day’s provisions slung over his shoulder. Unlike his last journey he has good boots, a fur hat, and layers of wool and leather armor. One good glove for his left hand, and only a sleeve for his right arm - the golden hand he dropped in his quarters and left behind. It feels strange to be out without it, but it won’t help him here.

The snow is hard-packed where the patrols had trampled it down, but further out from the wall it drifts up to his knees and before long it will be higher still. With his luck he will stumble straight into one of their own traps, and he has to waste precious seconds to search his footing for tell-tale signs of holes and snares. He hasn’t been beyond the walls of Winterfell once since he arrived, and he is no better at managing the terrain.

Jaime hears a distant shout; someone has followed him. He walks faster, trudging through the snow, trying to disappear into the forest and lose his pursuer.

Ahead, the forest is on fire. The treetops alight with blue flame in patches, in all directions, strange ashes floating in the air. At ground level there is no heat, but who knows if that will last. Is the blue fire not hot? Is it cold? Nothing at the ground level is burning, only flickering strangely with unnatural shadows. There is no telling what to expect now.

He slows. The wood has swallowed him quickly; he can’t see Winterfell behind him anymore. Without that, it will be easy to lose direction here. One can’t walk an entirely straight line with so many obstacles of trees and snowdrifts and stumps, and possible traps. He could easily lose his way out here. _Tyrion was right; this is foolish,_ he thinks, but he does not turn back.

A louder shout. His follower is persistent. They are well away from the Keep now, enough that a mere guard would have gone back to safety. This is someone who means to stay out here, maybe to join him.

 _If it’s Tormund Giantsbane, I’ll cut him down where we stand,_ he thinks, in a fit of possessiveness. But even as he thinks it, he knows he won’t. If the man is any use at all he can’t turn down the company, not if it might help Brienne. He will hate every moment of it, but he will accept the help.

But he looks back to find it isn’t the red-bearded wildling at all.

It’s Arya Stark. Out of breath, still tying a thick fur cloak over her thin shoulders as she scrambles to catch up with him. She moves quickly in the snow, seeming not to sink at all below the surface of the snow. Something about her shoes gives her better traction.

“Terrific,” he mutters, and picks up his pace. He couldn’t have selected someone of less help if he had tried, unless it was Sam and Gilly’s baby. The baby, for one, had better manners.

“If you’re looking for Brienne, I’m coming with you,” the girl calls out. "Do you know where to find her?" 

Jaime doesn’t reply. It doesn’t matter if she came to taunt him or stall him or watch him be roasted by a dragon, there just isn’t time for this. It’s hard enough to make his way through a hostile terrain under dragon attack without having to worry about a knife in his back. He hopes that if he proves less than engaging she might give up and go away.

“It’s not a trick,” Arya offers persistently. “I’m looking for her too. We might as well look together.”

He shakes his head. “I’m fine on my own. Prefer the company.”

“Do you even know where you’re going?”

Without looking back, he repeats what Pod told him. “Stand of white Alder trees on a rise.” _Which are now burned away. How will I find it?_ He doesn’t know. Once again he’s charged off into a situation with no plan, operating on sheer instinct.

Arya, on the other hand, sounds relieved. “That’s this way.”

He turns back. Arya is pointing over her left shoulder.

“And I should believe you?”

“You probably shouldn’t,” she says pragmatically. “But it’s this way.”

Jamie studies her skeptically. Why she might want his company, he can’t imagine. They cannot trust each other, and she could have brought literally any other traveling companion. Although, come to think of it, he has seen her with no one but her siblings at Winterfell; she seems to have even fewer friends there than he does.

Arya seems to pick up on his speculation, and quickly shakes it off. “Suit yourself,” she shrugs, and walks off in the direction she had pointed, at a confident and steady pace.

Jaime watches after her. She doesn’t deviate or show any sign of doubling back around.

Arya Stark might be his enemy, but she would also want to help Brienne, wouldn’t she? And it’s true, he doesn’t know where he’s going in the snowy terrain. Every direction looks the same to him.

As if there is any choice. With a resigned sigh, Jaime sets off after Arya into the thick northern woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Why Are You Like This, featuring Arya Stark and Jaime Lannister. Plus, somebody fights a dragon! Somebody gets hurt! Somebody has an emotional breakdown! Can you guess who’s who?


	6. Viserion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Arya are looking for Brienne in the Wolfwood, where the wight dragon Viserion has set the forest ablaze. Will they find Brienne, or encounter a dragon? Or will they murder each other first?

The Wolfwood shifts with strange shadows as the treetops burn blue. Viserion, the wight dragon, has circled overhead multiple times and laced the forest with his breath, but there is now no sign of him above the two travelers. Already deep and dark, no natural daylight filters through the trees and the dragonfire spreading overhead shines in the snow underfoot with an eerie glow. 

The canopy of the ancient forest is so tall and thick that the fires mostly rage well overhead. Here and there a branch the size of a carriage will crash to the ground in a blue streak and blaze brightly in their path. But the tree trunks are hard frozen and refuse to catch, and it will take some time for them to burn down. The fallen branches sputter out quickly against the hard-frozen ground. The fires may just strip the forest bare of its branches but leave the massive steeples of the mighty old trees that have grown here for thousands of years.

The blue flames, Jaime now knows, burn hot as any fire. Enough of it would melt away all of the ice and snow and bring the forest down to the ground, and if they weren't well into Winter it surely would have done so already. Another hour or two of dragonfire is likely to do the job, if Viserion returns. As it is moisture drips and glistens in the air as the mixture of ice and fire all around produces a fine mist. It lends the wood even more of an air of legend, as though Jaime and Arya are walking through a dream together.

The snow beneath the weird light of the fires is so bright Jaime can still see its after-image whenever he closes his eyes. Can see his dark boots enveloped by bright blue snow, over and over again, as he concentrates on his footing and works to keep pace.  

“Hurry up, Kingslayer,” his companion demands from well ahead, and he huffs irritably in response. Following the girl may have been a mistake.

It’s been somewhere between an hour and two since Arya Stark joined him in his search for Brienne in the Wolfwood, and in that time there’s been no sign of her. Nor of any other soldier, of those still missing from the forest patrols that did not return when the dragon was sighted.

Jaime’s struggling to keep up with Arya, and it’s making him cross. She’s smaller than him and should walk much slower. But clearly she knows this terrain like the back of her hand and crossing it costs her very little energy. Also her shoes have some kind of wide wooden blocks affixed to their bottoms, which might be helping with her footing. With them she seems to float above the snow and not sink knee-deep into it at every step as he does, dashing across the wood as though born to it, like a very annoying woodland creature.

Meanwhile Jaime could not be more out of his element if he tried. Not only in regards to the snowy landscape and the winter weather, either. He has tramped through the woods with a hostile companion before, but the dangers they faced then were far more mundane. He can handle brigands, cutthroats, battlefields. But magic - dragons, undead, the blue fire burning above him right now -  things he can’t strike down with his blade, these make him decidedly uneasy. If he had been told such a tale as a boy at Casterly Rock, he would have asked for another one instead. Something with more swordfighting. 

_ And skipping to the bit about rescuing the girl,  _ he thinks, shivering a little in the cold.  _ I’d very much like to know how that part comes out.  _

Arya seems less troubled. The girl is speaking in a long monologue of nothing in particular, her brittle voice deadened against the snow, and far enough ahead of him that he makes out only every other phrase. He suspects it doesn’t matter exactly what she is saying. Usually when Jaime is talking like that he is trying to deflect and distract from what he is actually thinking, but this prattle seems to be aiming to draw him out. 

“I’ve heard you haven’t had so much luck fighting dragons,” she says back to him this time, over her shoulder. “You lost your whole army to one, didn’t you? And you tried to kill one with a pike and had to be fished out of the river?”

“And yet I survived. Sounds like I did a better job fighting one than most, doesn’t it?” he shoots back, more or less calmly, and almost immediately his boot kicks against something hard and slippery in the snow and he nearly falls on his face as a result, only just catching himself.

It’s fairly hard to concentrate on keeping his footing while verbally jousting with the young Stark, which is probably entirely the point. Arya does seem to find his struggling entertaining. Jaime is about ready to stuff snow down the girl’s throat to quiet her.  _ However did Brienne keep from strangling me in the Riverlands, _ he thinks, seemingly out of nowhere, and then grimaces.

“I thought you were supposed to be the  _funny_ one,” Arya says back at him, sounding a bit disappointed. 

Jaime increases his pace, trying to ignore her. He’s tense enough without her prodding. This is taking much too long. They need to find Brienne now, quick as they can, and here they are trudging along in the endless forest at a distressingly slow pace. The snow is too deep and wet for running and they must change course around fallen trees and flaming branches at regular intervals. He can feel the hours of daylight slipping away, and when night falls it will be unfathomably cold. 

It’s true enough that this silence is unlike him. He feels unlike himself. Ever since he learned from Podrick that Brienne had not returned to Winterfell during the dragon attack, that she had in fact tried to lure the dragon away from Winterfell with her own body, he has been gripped by a mortal fear that leaves him raw and exposed as an open wound to the icy air. On top of it the threat of dragonfire has him on edge; any sound above makes him flinch and jerk his head up. But he never thinks to turn back, only to walk faster and be ready for whatever awaits him. What that might be -- an angry dragon, wolves, wights, an injured Brienne, or worse -- he runs over in his mind and tries to prepare. If she didn’t come back to the Keep, then she has been prevented somehow. He may have to fight off an attacker, or he may have to free Brienne from burning debris or some other obstacle. Or they could arrive too late to do anything for her. 

He must prepare himself for that too. They may not find her at all, or they could find her dead in the snow.

He must be ready for it, and he can’t face the thought. It makes him recoil from his own imagination in horror. Brienne couldn’t be dead. Brienne is the bravest and best knight in the Kingdom and she is too tenacious and too obstinate to let anything kill her. That woman will keep fighting long after the rest of them have been crushed and he cannot envision a world where that is not the case. It’s impossible.

Still, as he scans the strange landscape around them he is watchful for any shape that could be hers, and more than once he sees something that makes his pulse speed up, until he draws nearer and confirms that it is a tree stump, or the carcass of a bear, or some other thing that is, thank the gods, not her. 

“I’d heard you would never stop talking, jesting and joking, that even a blade at your throat would not silence you,” Arya is saying. She adds a little more thoughtfully: “Of course Brienne might think anyone is talkative, she hardly talks at all.”

Despite himself, this catches his attention, and he cannot keep from looking over at the girl to check her expression.  _ Brienne spoke of me?  _ He wonders what else she might have said. But no, he cannot believe a word this girl says, not after she had disguised herself as Cersei to try to get him kicked out of Winterfell. She is a liar and manipulator, and he is still not completely certain that she isn’t leading him into some sort of trap.

To keep pace, he focuses closer on the way she moves, her light steps. He has not yet seen her fight, but there is a small slim sword strapped to her side and she can obviously use it. He had thought of a water dancer once while watching her shadow her sister, but he suddenly remembers exactly who she reminds him of. It comes to him so quickly he speaks it aloud before he can think twice.

“Syrio Forel.”

“What?” Arya stops short in her tracks, caught off-guard, forcing him to pause mid-step as well.

“You studied with Syrio Forel. I’ll know for certain when you draw your blade, but I’d bet my last fifty crown on it.” He smirks at her surprise. “You think I wouldn’t know the First Sword of Braavos? You move like a water dancer, and he was in King’s Landing for many years.”

Arya walks beside him now, deeply interested in this topic. “You knew him? Did you fight with him?”

“Of course. I’ve crossed swords with every fighter worth a damn in Westeros.” 

“You haven’t fought me.” Arya brushes a hand over the sword at her side.

“Exactly,” he dismisses her arrogantly. “Forel didn’t fight at tourney, he wasn’t interested. But he did give lessons, and my father paid him handsomely to entice him to King’s Landing when I was a lad.”

Arya is confused. “When you were… that long ago?”

“How old did you think he was? Older than he looked, I assure you.” Then it’s his turn to stop short. “Wait, how old do you think  _ I am _ ?”

She ignores that, looking back at him with her brow furrowed. “But you’re not a water dancer. You couldn’t have learned from him.” The girl looks bothered by this idea, that he would know Syrio Forel. She is strangely protective of this memory.

“I learned a lot of styles. I had many teachers. I preferred the ones who wore armor, personally. Agility is all well and good fighting in the alleys of Braavos, but on a battlefield in Westeros you’re going to need plate mail.”  _ And two hands,  _ he adds silently. Actually, he might have done well to study more with a water dancer, now that he needs to fight with agility over strength. 

Arya breaks in over his thoughts, pointedly. “He died protecting me, you know. From  _ Lannister  _ soldiers.”

“I see,” he answers shortly. He knew Forel had perished in all that chaos, but not how or why. So that was how Arya had escaped King’s Landing with all the Kingsguard looking for her. 

There’s no use arguing that she wouldn’t have been harmed, that he would have sent her back to her mother if he’d come upon them. She is unlikely to believe that. Also he was probably capturing her father and killing his Captain of the Guard at that time, trying to get Tyrion back.

It would not precisely be true anyway -- even if he had captured the Stark girl without violence, he had gone out to face Robb Stark just after that, and would have left her to Cersei, just like he did Sansa. That would have been a disaster, plainly - feral little Arya trapped in King’s Landing with Joffrey and his mother would have been disposed of, he suspects, rather quickly. But if he  _had_ sent her back to her mother, she would probably have been killed at the twins with all the rest of the Starks. What a terrible mess it all is.

The trouble is, the more he interacts with these people, the more they become real and individual to him. He had been among Lannisters and their allies for so long, and it had been easy to think of everyone else as a faceless mass of no importance. But now he has been stranded repeatedly with outsiders, and everything is different. Suddenly they have become real people, and everything is more complicated. 

He would do it differently now, if he could. But there is no going back.

His thoughts are interrupted by a shape he catches in the corner of his eye.

“Hold,” he calls out to the girl. There’s something propped against a tree nearby, something charred black with the snow melted all around it. Only a thin layer of frost is starting to build over the blackened form, which as he draws nearer was clearly once a man.

Hopefully a man.  _ Gods be good, let it be a man, and not a woman. _

Arya hangs back impatiently as Jaime crouches beside the burned shape. He tries to brush the soft layer of snow away from his face and patches of skin flake off at his touch. He shakes his hand out distractedly, squinting at the body. The hair looks black, and the height too short, but after burning nearly to ash, who can tell? The sole of a boot is somewhat intact, though melted into shapelessness.  _ Much too small for Brienne’s elephant feet _ , he tells himself. 

Finally he reaches into the blistered and bubbling pile and grasps the hilt of a sword, a perfectly ordinary sword that once pulled from the ashes is obviously not Oathkeeper. 

“It’s not her,” he announces with some relief, tossing the iron blade aside and pushing back up to his feet.

“Obviously,” the girl says insolently, before resuming her pace. “Couldn’t you tell?”

He scowls after her. “One body is much as another, after dragonfire. Or wildfire, for that matter.”

She waves him off without looking back. “Nobody’s like Brienne.”

Jaime can hardly argue with that. He falls in behind the girl, using her footfalls to guide his steps, but his feet crash through the crust of snow and sink nearly down to his knees anyway.

“I hadn’t realized you were close,” he says icily. “I’ve never seen the two of you together.”

“We practice together, after everyone’s gone to bed.” Arya vaults confidently over a fallen tree, a born Northerner. “She shows me things, how the armor works, where to strike, how to fight someone much larger.”

Jaime struggles more slowly over the same obstacle. “I hope she showed you some real swords. That little toy blade of yours isn’t going to be much use in a fight.”

“You’d be surprised.” Again with that knowing tone that makes her seem much older, that makes him wonder exactly where the Stark girl has been for all these years. “Brienne says any weapon can be deadly if you use it well. She did try to give me a bigger blade, but I like Needle.”

“Did Brienne bring you back to Winterfell?” he asks. They may as well pass the time, and he had been curious.

“No, I made my own way back,” she tells him, deliberately omitting any mention of where she had returned from. “But I met her ages before that, just after mother and Robb died. I thought she was too good to be true, at first. I thought it must be some kind of trick. I’d heard stories of brave knights, but by the time I saw Brienne I knew they were just stories. When you meet real people like that, they’re usually...”

“Incompetent, or a liar,” Jaime fills in, unthinkingly. He had made the same assumption as well, when first he met Brienne.

“Yeah,” the girl agrees, eying him thoughtfully. “They mostly are. But Brienne was different. She was brave and nice and she tried to help me. She beat up the Hound to try to rescue me. She was wonderful. But…” Arya looks at her feet for the next few steps before resuming her thought. “I didn’t want to just go off with the next person to come along. I thought I would be better off on my own, and I was tired of getting attached to people and losing them. So I ran away from her. I wonder sometimes if I should have gone with her instead.”

Jaime imagines it, diligent and determined Brienne scouring the countryside for the Stark girls and when she finally finds one, they run away.  _ She must have been beside herself. Poor Brienne, nothing ever comes easily for her. _

“She didn't seem to mind that though. She taught me all sorts of things. And I can talk to her, like I could never talk to anyone else. She’s a good listener, she understands. And she’s not afraid of me, like everyone else lately.”

_ Can’t imagine why. _

Her voice flattens out a little then, goes distant and matter-of-fact. “Anyway, I should have known this would happen. I just thought there would be a little more time.”

“What do you mean?” he asks reluctantly. He has a feeling he doesn’t actually want to know all of this.

Arya looks back. “Until Brienne gets killed. Like all the others.”

He flinches a little. “Other what?” 

“People. Adults. Kids too, really. Just anybody who travels with me,  _ pffft _ ” she gestures across her throat, the meaning obvious. He must have had a strange look on his face, because she visibly shrugs it off. “Doesn’t matter. I’m used to it now. Everyone dies sooner or later.”

He grimaces at her cavalier tone. Never mind the grimness of a teenaged girl so well acquainted with death, he’d rather she didn’t say things like killed and died in the same breath as she mentioned Brienne. It surely tempts fate.

Arya isn’t talking to him anymore, not really. She’s thinking out loud, in the way a person accustomed to being alone gets the habit of doing. “I just don’t know if there’s any point to knowing anyone at all. Maybe Jaqen H’gar had it right and it’s better to be no one. I wanted to be Arya Stark again, but I forgot how much that hurts. I really left because I wanted to finish my list, but I just crossed off the last name. I don’t know if that means I should stop now, or if I should start adding more names.” She focuses on him suddenly, with deadly intensity. “What do you think?”

Jaime has no idea what she’s talking about. He doesn’t know what sort of list this is, but it gives him an ominous feeling. He wonders if it is the sort of list she might add him to. 

She is waiting for him to ask, but this list isn’t what he really wants to ask her about. All along it’s been on the tip of his tongue to ask her about Cersei, and her attempt to impersonate her. How had she imitated Cersei so well? Even with whatever inexplicable power to change her appearance, how had she known what Cersei would say, what Cersei would do? In the journey from Winterfell to King’s Landing she had been only a child and would never have seen her private face, the one that had been cruel and capricious and a little bit mad. And she could never have come close enough to her once she was the Queen.

But it’s better for all of them that he doesn’t know the answers to those questions. If it is anything like what he has guessed there is no way that he could go on sleeping beneath the same roof with her, and so long as he resides at Winterfell he will have to live with not knowing. What he suspects is impossible, anyway. How would one ordinary girl get close enough to the Queen of Westeros to assassinate her? It couldn’t possibly be true.

“I think,” he says carefully, “you should do whatever Brienne would say to do. She’s usually right.”

She makes a face, and he nearly laughs at it. He can just picture Brienne’s disapproving look keeping the wild little girl in line where nothing else would. 

“She’d say it’s more important to work together to protect the North first, and the rest we can decide later.”

That does sound like what she would say. Practical, putting honor first. How she had so devoted herself to protecting a land that isn’t even hers, he can’t quite imagine. Never mind that he had done much the same, it bothers him still. And he’s more bothered by how he has fallen from her list of priorities, if ever he was even on it.

“The North, the North, the North,” he grumbles. “All this fuss over who holds the North. Why is anyone so attached to this dismal place? Cold, ugly, and dull, and that’s just the people who live here. They can keep it.”

“No one’s going to keep it if the Night’s King gets here,” she reminds him.

“That might be an improvement!” Jaime laughs. “Let the dead come, it might liven up the place. It’ll be bloody but at least it will add some color.”

Arya makes a strangled sort of grunt of outrage. “As if King’s Landing is better? That… smelly garbage heap! That crowded, dirty eyesore! The air in that place was disgusting, I couldn’t stand it.”

“Nonsense. The sea air, you mean, air you can actually breathe in without scalding your throat? How awful for you.” He shakes his head, and realizes that he actually misses it. “The sunshine alone I’d cross the continent again to see. To walk in the gardens under a warm sun, and look at green grass and flowers. There’s nothing here to look at that isn’t purely functional. Useful and ugly, no decorations but the blasted Stark sigil.  _ And  _ I’ve not eaten a single decent meal since I came here. These other poor souls in this wasteland don’t know any better, but you’ve lived in civilization. Can you actually prefer this grim grey place to that?”

“Absolutely!” The girl is as proud as any Northerner about her homeland. “Your sister had the right idea burning Kings Landing down with wildfire. She should have used more!”

Any malicious sort of pleasure he was getting from irritating the girl dies right out at that. The smouldering remains of the Sept of Baelor is one of the few things he cannot joke about. 

He is opening his mouth to say something more cutting in reply when he realizes they have reached their destination. 

There’s a little rise just ahead of them, barely visible through the dense forest, with what was once a stand of trees. No telling now what kind they were -- they are burnt down to stumps, the ground around them charred where the fires reached the snowy ground and fizzled out. But Arya confirms that these are the alder trees that Podrick Payne had spoken of, where he had last seen Brienne. 

Jaime stands on the rise and looks all around, but there is nothing revealing in any direction, only the patchy devastation of fire that still smoulders in the air, and the obliterating snow that is slowly covering the last signs of what happened here. 

He had been secretly clinging to the idea that they would find her here waiting for them, perhaps knowing her squire would send help to her. But there is no sign of anyone nearby, nor any indication of where they might have gone.

“There’s no use hurrying now,” Arya says casually, dropping to the ground and rummaging through her bag. “There’s no sign of anything recent. Snow’s covered the footprints. If she was here, it was hours ago.”

“Then we’d best catch up.” Looking up at the snatches of sky he can see through the trees, he can estimate where the sun is setting, and turn left from there. “Pod said she was headed North from here. We’ll go in that direction until we pick up her trail.”

“Go on ahead then, with those expert tracking skills of yours,” she says sardonically. Arya sets aside the small bow that she had swung invisibly over her shoulder, pulls out a small bundle from her pack, and unwraps it - some remnants of lunch, from the look of it. Then the girl brings a chunk of bread to her mouth and starts chewing. 

Jaime fumes at her, torn between leaving without the girl and waiting for her to get moving again. She’s right, of course -- he has no particular skill at finding his way in this snowy landscape. He’s a lot more likely to find Brienne with a Northerner’s help. If only he’d found a more useful one before he left Winterfell.

“How can you eat that?” he says peevishly. Never mind having an appetite at a time like this, those crusts of bread are completely inedible. One might as well chew rocks.

“Worried?” she says through a mouthful of food.

“What do you think?” he snaps, throwing his bag on the ground and sitting down opposite her. He has his own provisions, but he isn’t even a little bit hungry.

“Afraid of losing your meal ticket, you mean.” 

“And you your maidservant,” he returns. 

Arya lowers her lunch briefly, insulted. “Brienne’s not our servant. She has an honored place in our house.”

“Oh right, as a glorified babysitter to two spoiled brats. What an honor.”

“This is her home. We’re family.”

“Her  _ home  _ is an island well South of here, and she has a family of her own.” Which he still knows only a little about, but still, it is probably more than the Starks have troubled themselves to learn. “Her father is the ruler of Tarth, and when he dies, it will all be hers. You didn’t know that, did you? Brienne’s not just your sworn sword, she’s a high born lady, and the next Evenstar of Tarth. Sooner or later, she needs to go home.”

“That’s not true,” Arya protests, looking troubled. Clearly it had not occurred to her to wonder what their protector might have left behind to come to the North, or what would happen when Winter ends.  “She swore to serve our house. She’s not going to leave us.”

“And you were going to hold her to that? For good? Brienne has better things to do than stand around dinner tables watching over your sister for the rest of her life. You would know that if you’d ever bothered to ask her.”

He's annoyed her sufficiently that she lowers her chunk of bread and levels a clear-eyed gaze at him.

“This is pointless now, you know.” Arya aims, sharp and deadly. “We should have found her coming back to Winterfell. She couldn’t still be alive.”

He steels himself against the idea. “Brienne could.”  

“She could if anyone could. But she’s not.” Arya shrugs, and it makes him want to backhand her. “Hope’s stupid. People just die. You lose sight of them and they never come back. You can chase after them and it doesn’t do any good. They aren’t coming back. That’s just not what happens.”

“Oh for gods sake, shut your mouth.” He slings the bag over his shoulder again and stands. “You brought me to the alder stand as you promised, and I can make my way from here. If you think this is so pointless, go back to Winterfell.”

She blinks back at him, her eyes comically wide and innocent. “I thought you wanted to help us win the war? What good will you do us if you get eaten by a dragon? Brienne’s dead.”

“Then I’ll find her body!” He snaps at her and it hurts, it hurts to say and it hurts to imagine but it’s even worse to hope, because then Brienne needs him and he is wasting time. “Why do you care what I do anyway? Why are you here?”

Arya stares unblinkingly. “I want to see what happens.”

Jaime turns his back on the girl and starts trudging north again, not caring whether the little killer follows him or not.

She can’t be as indifferent as she sounds, because before very long at all he can hear the girl behind him, hurrying to catch up.

_ What does she actually want from me?  _ he fumes.  _ All these questions, this blasted prodding. It would be faster to just stab me while I’m swimming in this snow.   _

Jaime tries to pick up his pace to stay ahead of her, so that he won't have to listen anymore.

Just then his right foot steps right through a crust of snow and plunges down into a hole. One of the traps their patrols had been working on setting -- maybe even Brienne’s patrol -- pits dug into the ground and filled them in with leaves, some concealing bear traps, waiting to be lit on fire at a distance by scouts in the trees. 

It works, as it turns out. He’ll have to tell Brienne that when he sees her. He just barely avoids falling into it fully, hanging onto proper ground with his left side while his right leg buries itself almost completely, nearly up to his waist. 

Arya watches impassively as Jaime struggles his way out of it. At first he can do nothing but cling to the side to keep from falling in. His right arm’s no help, his stump slides uselessly in the snow, and he has to use his left leg and arm to roll over onto the solid ground, quite undignified, completely covering himself in snow in the process. 

He sits a moment, panting and brushing the snow from his hair and clothes, while the Stark girl stands over him. 

“I don’t understand you,” she says, her head tilted quizzically, the strange mix of adult and child in her shading her words with so many inflections. “The Lannisters have done so many terrible things. And you fought for them. You helped them devastate my house and destroy my family. But… you don’t seem to hate us at all. Now you’re helping us. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Ah, I see. I’m confusing you. There should be two sides and they should be simple. Starks good, Lannisters bad.” Jaime kneels on the ground a moment longer, catching his breath. Her curiosity is strange. He’s not used to people trying to understand him, particularly not Starks. It feels like another trap. But he will be honest just the same, he might as well. “They were my family. It was nothing personal.” 

“But they  **were** bad.” There is nothing malicious in this; she seems to honestly want to understand. “Tywin, Joffrey, Cersei. They were awful people, they would violate any law or custom to get what they wanted. I don’t care if they were family, I wouldn’t have supported them no matter what.”

“Says Ned Stark’s daughter. Of course you can think that.” He shrugs his bag back over his shoulder tiredly. “But if it was your father who drowned Castamere, you might feel differently.” 

He is surprised to find some anger rising up in him at this. He didn’t know he was angry about it. But it bothers him for reasons that go back well before this girl was even born, this legacy he had burdened with.

“If we were so terrible,” he raises his voice, “why would our bannermen fight for us, or the common folk support us? And yet I commanded an army of many hundreds, and they were not evil men. They were ordinary people, and they fought for us because it’s what you do. You support your house. Had you been born a Payne or a Lorch or a Clegane, you would have fought for us too, and thought nothing of it.”

“That’s stupid,” she says plainly. “It shouldn’t be like that. If you serve a rotten Lord you should leave and find a better one.”

“And leave your family, your status, and your home, and everything you’ve ever known? Only a child could think it’s easy as that. You’ve not lived long enough that you’ve had to do awful things to survive. Just wait, Stark, before this war’s over you’ll be as contemptible as me.” 

That, he can see plainly, drew blood. He’s not sure precisely which part of it struck true, but something he had said made the girl darken considerably, and her shoulders hunch with shame.  _ That should silence her a while,  _ he thinks, perhaps a little regretfully, and drags himself back to his feet.

He sets off walking in the direction they were already pointed, and lets her follow behind him quietly. 

Still, the girl does not quite let it go. After a few minutes, she speaks up again, determinedly. 

“You left Cersei before she died. You changed sides. You must have thought it was the right thing to do.”

He hadn’t thought any such thing, not so clearly as that. Anyway, he is not going to talk to a Stark about it. It’s none of their business.

“You really thought I was her, didn’t you? I fooled you completely, and you didn’t take the chance to betray us - you tried to do the right thing instead.”

“What do you  **want** from me, an apology?” he snaps at her over his shoulder. “For me to renounce my house? What would be the point - they’re all dead now, all but me and Tyrion and you and your siblings. The past is gone and I can’t change it. I can only do what I can here and now. We all have to learn to live together, or we’re all going to die,” he finishes.

Behind him, he can hear her say quietly: “You could at least acknowledge what you’ve done to us. That would be a start.”

There isn’t much to say after that. They walk a quarter hour in silence, the only sound the sizzle of fires burning far above them.

They are quite far out into the wood now, and even Arya is starting to be less familiar with the landscape. She looks around and around and is awfully interested in detecting signs of Brienne for someone who has supposedly given up on hope. The girl is not very good at being jaded yet.

They can smell dragon long before they can see it. Jaime didn’t realize he knew what dragons smelled like until that strange tang was in the air again, a sharp and smouldering odor. He gestures caution to Arya. 

_ We’re close now.  _

They clear past a thick line of pine trees and the ground opens out below them, and there is Viserion, huge and alive and real, and on the ground quite near them.

When the dragon comes into view he grabs hold of Arya instinctively. She quickly shrugs him off, as confused as he is about this sudden protectiveness.

It isn’t just that their goal is the same, or that she is a child, or that Brienne loves her. He  _ feels  _ responsible for her. Gods only know why. It must be the oath he had sworn to Catelyn, still nagging at his conscience.

_ That isn’t why,  _ he admits to himself, but does not follow that line of thought any further. He just stays near her, eyeing the dragon.

There is a ravine ahead, a gorge with steep sides, and the dragon stands at the bottom of it, with just enough room to open its wings and no more. Its head is bowed down out of view.

The two travelers crouch in the only bushes they can find, at the far end of the gorge, and take it in - the blue dragon, an impossible creature out of storybooks.

“What is it doing?” Arya asks quietly, but it isn’t doing anything as far as he can tell. Is it resting? Eating? The flank of the beast rises and falls with each breath but other than that it does not move.

There is a rider atop the dragon, they can see now from above. A man, or shaped like a man, but only barely discernible from the blue-grey scales of the dragon. Impossible to see any more detail than that; its back is turned to them and it does not move. 

Steam rises off the great beast where it crouches, snow melting all around it. The walls of the ravine drip with condensation, and between it and the dragon’s own smell it is making Jaime light-headed. The dragon does move from time to time, a quick flex in its back that implies a movement with its legs, but mainly it holds utterly still. 

“What’s down there?” he whispers to the girl.

“Nothing. There’s an opening, but it doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Big enough to hide in?”

Arya shrugs. Maybe, maybe not. “Big enough to go inside, but not much more than that.”

Viserion is awfully interested in it. It reminds Jaime of the castle cats when they had cornered a mouse and wished to toy with it awhile. They would crouch just like this, entirely focused on their prey. Is there something there, trapped by the dragon? A beast, or perhaps a person?

It can’t see them where they crouch at its back, but still adrenaline surges through him at the thought that Brienne could be in there, on the other side of that enormous beast. It’s the kind of surge of excitement he often gets before a fight, but worse. Too much, too fast, and getting worse by the moment. The longer he looks at it, the more he tense and light-headed he feels.

Then all at once everything seems to smear and shrink around him, and in a slow blink Jaime is elsewhere. 

Outside himself.

Floating. 

His old trick, the useful escape of taking himself away from the terrible things happening around him, it seems to be happening on its own now. He doesn’t decide to do it, he just  _ goes _ . It should be frightening, but it isn’t; It’s more of a relief. 

He’s dimly aware of a man and a girl spying on a dragon from behind a bush, but they’re very far away and they’ll do all right without him for awhile.

Here it’s peaceful and quiet and it feels like nothing at all and seems to last a long time.

When he snaps back into his body it is a terrible shock, like plunging suddenly into ice water. He gasps at the flood of sensations, nausea and anxiety overcoming him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Arya hisses at him. She has kicked him in the ribs, ungently, and knocked him over to one side, blinking back at her in confusion. 

Jaime catches his breath slowly, and forces himself to look at the dragon, feeling the girl’s curious eyes on him.  _ Pull yourself together, _ he tells himself, not kindly, and it sounds very much like his father.  _ Is the wolf child braver than you? The Lion of Lannister?  _ But it isn’t helping; his left hand is shaking and he takes in nothing of the sight before him, the dragon that is so close they can hear its snuffling breaths is only a dizzy blur in his vision. 

He doesn’t  _ feel  _ afraid, even now. But as it turns out, there are a lot of things he does not allow himself to feel that are nonetheless inside him somewhere, and festering, and his body reacts to them just the same. Shame and grief and loneliness, for example, those things he has started to know and name during his time in Winterfell. Now it is fear that grips him physically and he does not know how to fight that. He has always been utterly fearless, but that was before he watched hundreds of men burning to death around him, and nearly died himself, at the foot of a dragon.  

What he is going to do, of course, is swallow it down and act anyway, whatever the consequences. He is Jaime Lannister and that is what he does. He is going to shut his eyes and remember why he is here. He thinks of Brienne tied to a tree by the Brave Companions, taunted and threatened on all sides, with no hope of rescue. And yet her eyes were defiant and determined, even as she faced a terrible fate. She would not cower or plead with them, they would not see her afraid. He remembers it so clearly, as though she still sits a few feet away from him, and how he had seen the look in her eyes and decided that he would protect her, even though she is not family and even though she despises him, he would protect her, he would do whatever he must to keep her safe.

Jaime remembers that and breathes easier, and when he opens his eyes his vision is clear and sharp.

Viserion scrambles madly at the cave mouth, huffing in frustration. He very much wants whatever is in that cave. Perhaps a six-and-a-half foot tall snack? But the rider makes no effort to turn his attention away, and surely he has greater fish to fry than one single soldier? 

It doesn’t make sense. As ever their enemy is baffling and unknowable. But not unreasoning, he reminds himself. Their reasons may be obscure, but they are not beasts. 

Jaime looks down suddenly at his sword in its scabbard. A single soldier with a Valyrian steel sword. Valyrian steel, the only blade that could kill a white walker. Could the Night’s King know how few of them they have? Had the rider seen Brienne’s blade and followed her?

“Brienne is in there,” he tells the girl with new certainty. “And she’s alive.”

“How do you know?” Arya whispers back.

The dragon pulls his head back sharply, and inhales. After a long pull of breath it blows fire into the crevasse, fire that only rebounds and blows back so brightly that the two of them have to shield their eyes.

He can’t explain how he knows; the Valyrian steel yes, but it’s more than that. He can picture Brienne running through the wood, the dragon crashing through the branches above her, and how she would think only of drawing it farther from the Keep. If she came to the ravine, she would skid down the side without hesitation, trying to drop out of sight and leave it searching for her above. Bad luck, maybe, it followed her down. And then into the crevasse, shielded somehow from the flames, and hiding herself there. 

Jaime moves closer, parting the branches for a better look. If Brienne is in there, she’s trapped. He will need to get the dragon away from the opening, so that she can make her escape. A few minutes’ distraction should be enough. 

His heart is beating so hard he can hear it thumping in his ears. He can just hear Tyrion shouting at him now -- that it’s suicide to throw yourself in a hole with a dragon, that he isn’t even sure she’s in there, that he should think before he acts -- but he thinks that by the time he knows anything for certain it will be too late. 

He has to remind himself to keep breathing, that’s where the trouble comes in. Keep breathing.

“What are you doing?” Arya’s surprise makes her look very young indeed. She’s not quite so worldly as she wants to seem.

“Something stupid.” He draws Widow’s Wail, as silently as he can. “You wanted to see what happens? Watch. This ought to be dramatic either way.”

“You think you’re going to kill a dragon all by yourself?” she whispers incredulously.

“I don’t have to kill it.” He smiles at her surprise. “I just have to annoy it a little.”

“You should be good at that,” he hears behind him as he pushes through the branches as quietly as he can and drops into the ravine. 

At first he thinks for certain they will hear him coming. He hits the slippery side of the embankment much harder than he intended and slides down it with a gravelly roar that he’s sure they could hear all the way to Winterfell. But when he manages to stop, just short of the bottom, there is not a flicker of attention from Viserion, and it appears the great huffing breaths of the dragon echoing in the ravine are loud enough to drown out his own cautious footsteps. 

Jaime looks back. The Stark girl is peering down at him, her mouth a round open oh. She really was not expecting him to jump in. Brienne must not have told her that he is prone to this sort of thing. 

He steps carefully towards the dragon. From here, the hindquarters of the beast loom large enough that he cannot make out the rider, large enough that his task seems more futile by the moment. Viserion’s hind feet are a horse-length long, and Jaime has only a blade only barely the size of one of its claws.

Halfway up the cliffside directly opposite, there is an opening. Too narrow for the beast to get its snout inside, but wide enough for a person. This opening is where the dragon faces, its head bobbing back and forth like a snake, trying to see into it. 

As silently as he can, Jaime steps closer. The air grows noticeably warmer as he approaches, the snow melting away beneath his feet. The dragon itself seems to give off a strange heat from its very scales, and the smell of it is much more powerful the closer he comes.

He should have asked Arya to keep up the fight should he fall. Somehow he thinks she will anyway. Whatever the girl says, she came all this way looking for Brienne just as he did, and she cares for her. When he looks back again she does have her bow in her hands and an arrow nocked to it, ready to draw back. What good that will do is unclear, but any additional distraction is welcome. 

Jaime reminds himself to breathe.  

He needs one good blow at something useful, somewhere vulnerable and within reach. The beast’s head is too dangerous, and anyway far away from his position. The belly will do it; a solid blow to the belly while it is distracted, where perhaps the hide is not so tough. If he can stab his blade there and get it bleeding, it will curl up protectively and leave an opening for Brienne to escape. The embankment is not so steep above the cave mouth as it is below, she would be able to climb up if she can get out. 

If he’s extremely fortunate, he might be able to run away as well. 

It seems more and more feasible, as he approaches the beast’s hind legs. If he can steal around its claws while it is distracted, he will have an open target to strike. He should be able to do that much. Viserion’s attention is fully focused on the cliff face in front of him, and there’s not a twitch to indicate he’s noticed someone sneaking up behind him.

Which is why Jaime doesn’t see the blow coming.

Entirely focused on the dragon’s talons, he doesn’t mark the dragon’s tail pulling sharply to one side like a snake winding up for a strike. He only sees it sweeping at him when it’s too late to do anything about it but pull his arm across his face and duck his head down, his back taking the full force of the blow. 

Jaime is knocked off his feet and flung through the air.

He’d been kicked by a horse once, as a squire, fortunately saved from the worst of the damage by his armor. The force of that blow had sent him flying too, but it was nothing compared to this. This was more like the hard stop of the ground after a killing fall, like being smashed across the back with a building.

Jaime lands badly, rolls several times over in the snow and debris before skidding to a stop. There is a stinging sensation across the back of his shoulders and a sudden cold blast of air that tells him his coat and leather armor both have been rent open, sliced through by the sharp scales of the dragon’s tail. He thinks he is not seriously wounded, but he lies dazed a precious few seconds making that determination.

When he pushes up onto his hands and knees and looks up, the face of Viserion is turned towards him, the great head looming improbably overhead. Its eyes are ice blue and they shine like cat’s eyes, unblinking and locked on him. The beast’s maw opens, surely about to end him with a single blast of its blue flame.

Jaime needs to get up and run, but he’s frozen solid. The beast is too big and it is upon him. Even if he could run faster than any man alive, he could not possibly evade it now.

Then the head dips sharply to one side, emitting a strange grunting cry, and turns its head back where it came from, back to the cliff face where its prey had been hiding. But she’s come out of her hiding place, the knight in her blue armor, a long tower shield in one hand and a sword in the other. It’s her. Staggering a little, but seemingly no worse for wear.

“Brienne!” he shouts out with all his strength. She’s alive, he’s found her, and there is no time to be glad of it because the dragon sees her, is scraping the sides of the gorge trying to turn back to her direction. 

She will have to climb up the cliffside to escape and she will have to do it now, while it is turning. He looks for her to appear at the top and struggles to take a deep breath. His chest clenches painfully around his lungs; something in it bruised, or possibly broken, in the blow he took. 

But she doesn’t climb to the top. Instead with her great tower shield and her valyrian sword, she is driving the beast back from the crevasse where she had been trapped, uttering cries of exertion at every swing. She’s fighting the dragon. She’s actually fighting the dragon.

Viserion crashes with its front legs against the ground where she stands and she swipes her sword across its outstretched front foot, tearing into the webbing between two talons. The dragon jerks back on its hind legs, perhaps surprised to meet something so small that can sting it back, and Brienne’s sword drips with black blood. The creature has probably never met a sword that could cut like Valyrian steel, the blade of dragon-slayers. It utters an ear-splitting scream of rage and strikes against the cliff, a bite that could swallow a human whole if they are lucky, and break them in half if they are not. The great dripping teeth dive down and snap together in the space where its human prey had stood not seconds before, but Brienne has dived over the side and tumbled down the embankment in a loud clamor of metal and rock.

Jaime rolls to his feet and grabs his blade, just as Brienne scrambles to her own feet at the bottom, her heavy armor weighing her down, and comes up clutching Oathkeeper. 

“Brienne!” he calls to her again, but she cannot hear him. The dragon is making a low scraping roar like a mountain clearing its throat, and then it’s plainly drawing in breath, the enormous bellows of its chest audibly filling.

Before it can pulverize its opponent with flames, she is running at it. While it’s still inhaling, she slashes at its neck. Her blade just catches the skin of it, a flesh wound that doesn’t break through to the muscle, but it slashes open a rent in its scales. Blood oozes out thickly, black as the night sky. It shocks the creature again, the sudden pain. Viserion coughs and sputters flames harmlessly over her head.

Jaime looks for some opening for his own attack, now, while the beast is preoccupied. The head is still well away from him, which is just as well – he hasn't a shield, and he’d rather not be scorched if he can help it – but the other end is no safer, with the great tail sweeping back and forth in irritation, like an angry cat, every swing a few wagon-lengths across and near enough his position to create a strong breeze. Its belly is beyond his reach, several arm’s lengths away now that it no longer crouches along the ground. He races up nearer the hind legs, where each claw is bigger than his sword, and nothing looks particularly vulnerable. He aims a few blows at the foot, but the scales are too thick and hard here and his sword pings harmlessly off their surface no matter how hard he swings. The beast does not even feel his attacks.

Arrows fall at his feet. Somewhere overhead Arya is firing her bow, but she’s having no more luck. The arrows on the ground are dented and broken and none of them stick in the dragon’s hide, much less puncture through it. 

Meanwhile Brienne stays at the dragon’s head, swiping at the great claws with her blade when they come too close. When the creature draws in a long breath, she runs beneath it so that Viserion vomits jets of blue flame over her head, staying barely a few steps ahead of its aim. When the fire stops she slashes at the beast’s chest, at its legs, drawing great stripes of dark sticky blood.

In his peripheral vision, Jaime sees blue flames erupting brighter than ever. He swings around to see Brienne’s tower shield engulfed in flame, just barely sheltering her crouched behind it. The shield’s edges curl and shrink, melting away from the force of the fire. It will not take many of those blasts. 

He slashes desperately at the heel of the hind foot, slowly slicing open the long tendon that runs there until it streams black blood. Still the creature does not turn in his direction, stays focused on the knight in full armor before it, as though it too has heard the songs and tales of the brave knight and the dragon dueling to the death.

Viserion swipes again with his front claws. Brienne’s armor takes the worst of the blow, but it knocks her back roughly. Had she been anyone else she might have crumpled to the ground, but she only stumbles, dazed, and brings up her shield, which is fortunate as the great dragon is charging in to finish her.

Again she jams her shield into the path of its bite. It cannot close its teeth around her, but it plows into her shield at full force, shoving her back. She is thrown with such force it makes him gasp. She slams into the rocky cliffside at a bone-rattling speed and is pinned there, only her shield between her armored form and the snout of the beast crushing her.

Without time to think or plan, Jaime raises Widow’s Wail and charges at the dragon. With all of his strength, his right arm adding its force to the left, he plunges his valyrian steel sword into the base of the dragon’s tail. Somehow it cuts through the iron-hard hide of the dragon and slides easily into the softer flesh below. He shoves the blade in nearly to the hilt and twists it harshly, black blood gushing from the wound. The blade jerks from his grasp as the dragon finally screeches with pain and rage and turns.

Brienne collapses to the ground as the great head that had been pinning her to the wall pulls back.

Instinctively Jaime follows the tail as the beast turns itself to find the irritating insect that had stung so deeply, where Widow’s Wail stays stuck fast in the scaly hide. He tries to grab for his blade, but even a casual movement from the huge creature keeps his intended target well out of his grasp, and he is left running after his sword, just barely staying ahead of the angry claws of the dragon that now very much has its attention on him. Blasts of blue flame ring out behind him, ahead of him, and he has no safe direction to turn.

Somehow Brienne has regained her feet, shouting wordlessly after him. If she had not seen Jaime before, she most certainly does now. He can see her only in glimpses as he evades the dragon’s claws.

_ Now, Brienne, now, run away now! _

She holds Oathkeeper with both hands now, her shield crumpled in the snow beside her. The blade shines black with dragon’s blood, and her blue armor is stained with it in great splashes. But her face is clear beneath her helmet, and all across it is fury. 

“Face me, you coward!” she screams up past the dragon, to the dragon’s back, where a rider sits covered in frost that glimmers in the faint daylight. 

The dragon turns away from him at once, refocusing on her. Perhaps at a command from the rider? He may have frustrated the beast, but the real danger is the blue knight with her shining sword who fights it face to face. If Viserion and his rider can finish her, he will surely dispatch with the elusive opponent at its back soon after.

Jaime skids to a stop at the sight, Brienne calling a challenge to the dragonrider, as brave and beautiful as any song ever sung. 

Crazed with pain and bewilderment, Viserion issues a low growl and braces itself for another charge, and Jaime breaks into a run. Widow’s Wail is stuck still in the dragon’s scales but he runs the other way, to her.

_ She has no shield, she has no _ –

He runs to her, not a thought in his head other than to somehow take the blow in her place. But he is too slow.

The dragon charges, the great jaws opening.

Oathkeeper slashes, and the dragon’s head turns to one side, flinching. It’s not a deep blow, mostly absorbed by the dragon’s diamond-hard teeth, but it does tear at the creature’s upper lip. Blood drips from its mouth and it snaps shut protectively, angling away from her even as it continues its charge. 

His clawed foot stomps down hard, missing her in its flinch, and buries itself in the ground beside her. Brienne changes her grip quickly and hefts the pommel back against her right shoulder like a spear, elbows out, as she steps up and over the dragon’s claws, vaulting herself heavily up in her own desperate charge.

With a great cry Brienne stabs the sword out with all her strength at the great dragon’s head.

The blade sinks into Viserion’s right eye and sticks there, halfway buried in the gushing jelly of the punctured orb.

The most terrible screech of all sounds from the beast and it tosses its head in agony, knocking her back off her feet.

All of this transpires in the time it takes Jaime to run to her at full speed, and he has barely the time to take it in. His momentum does not slow; he reaches Brienne where she sits stunned on the ground and circles around her, reaching for her sword.

Half-blinded, the beast has reversed its charge and is backing away in quick jerks, its head low to the ground and moaning in agony. Jaime sprints faster and struggles to grasp Oathkeeper. The blade is stuck hard in the quivering, weeping eye of the dragon, and slippery with gore. It slips from his hand twice before he gets a good hold and even then, does not budge. 

Viserion shudders to a stop and takes several deep breaths, groaning. This close, standing right over the bloody maw of the dragon, the sound is loud enough to make his ears ring. As he stubbornly fights to dislodge the valyrian blade from its eye socket the dragon’s hot breath burns through his armor like a blacksmith’s oven. 

Every instinct he has is screaming at him to flee, but he can’t let go of the sword. If he can get a good hold he can drive it in further, strike deeper into the creature’s skull, perhaps even still it for good.  _ Any moment now it will blast me with its fire, _ Jaime has just enough time to think, but instead the dragon does something completely different.

When the dragon lifts its head, it pulls him right off the ground.

Jaime manages to keep hold of Oathkeeper’s hilt even as he is lifted into the air, dangling as the great wings spread to take flight. His grip is true now, with his good hand, but the sword will not move. He pulls harder, bracing his feet against the dragon’s head to try to pry it out. They cannot lose two valyrian blades, and especially not ones that can damage a dragon. They cannot lose Oathkeeper, Brienne’s blade, the sword he had given her. He takes a deep breath and puts his entire body into the effort, his legs straining.

The first beat of the dragon’s wings blasts wind in all directions, and a sickening sinking feeling in his stomach marks the moment they take to the air. They rise up out of the gulch and quickly entangle with the trees that line the ravine, listing heavily to one side as Viserion’s wings bash against the branches, fighting to break free. 

In his shock at the sudden sensation of flight he looks up from the blade, over the dragon’s head, over the long and twisting neck and sees in clear and sharp detail the rider on its back. A man frozen. The sight of it makes his stomach lurch with revulsion.

He looks like any number of men Jaime had found dead on the Kingsroad north, faces blue and stiff with frost – but this one still lived, if one could consider this horrible approximation life. Its eyes glow ice blue, visible even at a distance. Its mouth moves. It is looking straight at him, and it says – it says –

He never hears what the frozen man says. At last the sword pulls free, followed by a gush of vitreous fluid as the eye fully collapses, and both it and Jaime hurtle to the ground.

He falls, clutching at the sword, cartwheeling into a deep snowbank between the trees.

Very quickly the grey sky and black earth tumble over one another in his vision and abruptly change to white. He is face-first in wet snow, the sound of beating wings receding into the distance.

Seconds later the pain arrives, dull and burning and everywhere. He is strangely grateful for it; it means he’s alive.

He rolls painfully, and lies dazed in the snow. The sky is clear above him. Heavy with dark clouds as usual, but no sign of a dragon through the fire-blasted trees. The sound of wings completely dies away, overtaken by the sounds of wind and forest and his own gasping breaths. It’s gone. He feels around suddenly, realizing he doesn’t have Oathkeeper anymore.

Then Brienne rushes into view, dropping to the ground beside him. “Jaime!” She looks as surprised as he is that he didn’t get bitten in half. She puts her hands on him here and there, feeling for wounds, and says his name again urgently.

At first he is lost in a swell of relief. He’s found her and she is unharmed. It feels like he’s been granted a stay of execution.

“Jaime,” she bends over him, looking very worried. “Are you all right? Say something!”

He stares up at her fondly. She’s alive. She fought a dragon and she’s alive. Just wait until Tyrion hears about this. It’ll be just like all the bedtime stories he had told him as a boy. The brave knight fighting a dragon.

“The sword,” Jaime speaks up, suddenly concerned. “I had it… I must have dropped it.”

“Never mind that.” Brienne holds him still, pressing firmly against his shoulders. She looks so terribly pale, and her blue eyes are big and round. “Are you hurt?”

“Not a bit,” he answers reflexively. Distracted, he reaches around in the snow beside him. He had held on tightly to the blade as he fell, it was a wonder he didn’t impale himself on it. It can’t have gone far. Jaime sits up slowly and continues searching until his increasingly-numb fingers encounter something solid and pulls it up and out of the snowbank.

Jaime grins triumphantly as the sword emerges, looking as unblemished and sharp as the day it was made. The wet snow had even washed the dragon’s blood from the blade, mostly. He presents it to her, sitting up excitedly. Oathkeeper, his gift to her. He can give it to her again.  

She blinks at him, looking strangely aghast. Black blood drips unnoticed from her cheeks.

“I believe ‘Thank you’ would be an appropriate response,” he prompts her gallantly.

“What in the world were you thinking?” Brienne sputters, inexplicably upset.

“I was thinking that we have only five valyrian blades, and yours the best of the lot. I couldn’t just let it fly away.” This seems self-explanatory. But she doesn’t seem to agree, and gapes at him as though he has just sprouted a second head.

“Have you lost your mind? You could have been killed,” she scolds him sharply, a strange quaver in her voice.

Which is absurd coming from her, absolutely absurd. He argues back, “You’re the one running off from your patrol and picking a fight with a dragon, you  _ utter  _ madwoman.”

“You aren’t supposed to be outside the walls at all! What are you  _ doing  _ here?” She puts a hand to her forehead as though the sight of him is giving her a headache.

“Looking for you, of course! We thought you might need some help, and it looks like we were right.”

Brienne drops her hand suddenly, surprised. “We?”

Right, where is the little menace? He stopped seeing her arrows some time ago. Jaime pushes up to his feet slowly and painfully. He is bruised and aching everywhere, but he can stand, at least. 

Their hiding place in the bushes, where he had last seen Arya, looks abandoned from here. Has she run off? He has just started to approach the ravine, when suddenly an arm slings over the side. 

“My traveling companion,” he says glumly, gesturing, as the younger Stark sister’s head appears and she scrambles up to their level.

Brienne is furious. “You brought Arya Stark all the way out here with a dragon about?!”

Jaime rolls his eyes at her. “It was not my idea, I assure you. The girl snuck out of Winterfell all on her own.”

The girl brushes off a good amount of dirt and ash before she stands, clutching something in her hands. 

Arya has Widow’s Wail. She must have pulled it from the dragon’s hide while he was retrieving Oathkeeper. How had the girl managed that? Again she is a lot more capable than she looks.

She’s stalking over to him holding the blade and wearing a scowl on her face when she sees Brienne and suddenly freezes. The sword slips unnoticed from her fingers, sticking in the snow. 

Jaime realizes that Arya missed almost everything. The girl couldn't see Brienne from her perch on the rise, she only saw him attacking the dragon. She must have thought him completely mad.

The girl stumbles, nearly falls, suddenly rushing in their direction. Shock is plain on her face when she reaches them. “You’re alive.”

“Well, of course I am,” Brienne says matter-of-factly, oblivious to the girl’s sudden anguish. “I’m not going to let a dragon eat me before the siege has even begun.”

The young Stark, only a little more than half Brienne’s size, throws her arms around her waist and buries her face against her. For a moment she looks like the young girl she is, clinging to a loved one for safety. 

“You’re alive,” she says again, and bursts into tears.

Brienne looks bewildered. “Of course I am,” she repeats, a little more gently. She clumsily puts an arm around the sobbing girl and looks to Jaime for an explanation.

He makes a baffled gesture, as surprised as she is. 

Then Brienne drops down to her knees, awkwardly. Arya puts her arms around the armored woman’s neck and buries her face against her shoulder, her crying painful and wrenching. The mourning in those cries is staggering, it sounds too much for one body to carry. You can hear Ned’s execution in it, and Catelyn’s death, and Robb’s, and Syrio Forel’s, and gods only know who else. It all comes out now in a torrent of unendurable grief that has been held back far too long.

Brienne holds her. There is something motherly and powerful about that embrace. Jaime finds he can’t look directly on it; its too private. He has to stand patiently nearby and listen as the girl’s cries slowly die away. 

It feels strange. He remembers, unwillingly, his own seventeen year-old self. If ever anyone had held him like that after Aerys, or tried to understand him even a little, his life could have gone very differently, he thinks. But it will be different for this girl. There’s still time.

He circles around them and retrieves Widow’s Wail, the blade still sticky with dragon’s blood. He wipes it on the snow and brushes the black stains away with his sleeve and the stump of his right hand. It gives him something to do.

The girl did get back his sword for him. He will have to give her that. 

Arya pulls out of Brienne’s embrace several minutes later, looking sheepish. She wipes at the tears on her face hurriedly. “Podrick said you were out here alone with the dragon, and we thought you could be trapped or hurt…”

“I was a bit stuck,” Brienne admits, keeping an arm around the young Stark. “I found that spot in the cliff where it couldn’t reach me, as long as I stayed on my feet and kept my shield up. I hoped it would give up and go away at some point, but it just kept on trying. I was there for hours, and I was getting awfully tired.”

“Your patrol made it back and told us what happened. But then they closed the gates at Winterfell and kept everyone inside,” Arya tells her. More reluctantly, she adds, “Lord Lannister here insisted on sending soldiers after you, and broke out against orders when they wouldn’t. He was determined to find you.”

Brienne looks over at him with a strange expression on her face that he cannot interpret. Both pained and pleased at once, intensely so. He has seen it on her face before and he has never known what it means. No one else has ever looked at him like this.

Arya sees it too, and continues cheerfully, “Of course, he also fell in a hole and checked half a dozen frozen lumps of snow for you, so it’s a good thing I was here to help him.”

By now Jaime rather wishes Arya had stayed behind, so he could have Brienne to himself. But of course she had lead him here, and he would not have found her without Arya’s help. Curses and damnation. 

_ What did you expect, anyway?  _ He asks himself ruefully.  _ That you would slay the dragon yourself and Brienne would fall into your arms in gratitude, like a blushing maiden? Foolishness. Brienne would never do that, even if you’d been any use against the dragon.  _

“I just came along with Arya for company. The poor child was scared to death,” he tells Brienne, and she returns to her more formal and impassive expression.

Arya turns her face just enough to shoot a glare of pure exasperation at him. “And you weren’t worried at all,” she said sarcastically.

“Nope,” he says cheerfully. “I knew you’d be fine. Could we get back to Winterfell now? It’s half past freezing.”

“Of course,” Brienne says, and pulls her helmet back over her head. She is still disheveled from the fight, and her armor stained with sticky black blood, but she has no intention of sitting down to rest. She leads the way back, following their tracks back into the deep wood that leads to Winterfell.

“You’re a great idiot, you know that?” Arya says in an undertone, as soon as Brienne steps away. 

She’s probably right. He can’t quite stop himself from acting dismissive of everything most important to him. It’s just that after all those hours of private terror he’s had quite enough of taking things seriously. Having all these  _ emotions  _ all the time is exhausting. 

What Arya says next surprises him: “You know, you’re going to need a better strategy than killing yourself if you’re going to keep Brienne alive.”

“... It worked, didn’t it?” Killing himself had not been the plan, but he can admit that surviving had fallen down the list of priorities somewhat when Brienne was in danger. 

“Bran said the war would kill her. The  **whole** war, dummy. If you die, who will protect her then?” The Stark girl glares especially hard at that. “You’d better try a whole lot harder to keep yourself alive, Kingslayer.”

Now that’s a surprise. He hasn’t thought of it that way before. 

“We love her too, you know,” Arya says, and stomps off into the wood.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, did anyone have bets on Arya having the emotional breakdown? If you guessed Jaime or Brienne fighting a dragon, they're both right! But a special no-prize to the person who guessed Brienne didn't need rescuing - she did need a hand, but she did a pretty good job against Viserion! As far as the injury, you'll have to wait a little longer for that to play out. Someone is hurt more than they're saying, and it's a long walk back to Winterfell.
> 
> I played around with canon a little bit re: Syrio Forel. There's no indication of whether he encountered any of the Lannisters but he was in King's Landing for some time and it makes sense to me that Jaime would have sparred with him at least once. He would certainly be aware of him, and would recognize his style. 
> 
> Next chapter: a lionness in winter, trust goes both ways, a long walk home, and another talk with Bran! Now featuring LOTS more Brienne/Jaime interaction, promise!


	7. Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya and Jaime found Brienne in the Wolfswood, and helped her defeat the dragon Viserion. Now all they have to do is get her back to Winterfell. But she's nursing an injury and refuses to be helped, and Jaime must fight his way past everything that has come between them to reach her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many many thanks to honorata and tupelosong, my wonderful beta readers, for your help with this chapter!

It takes longer than it should for Jaime to realize that something is wrong. At first he is distracted by their unlikely victory over the undead dragon Viserion, how he and Arya had located Brienne against all odds and enabled her to fight the creature off, and this triumph had lulled him into the comfortable belief that the hardest part was behind them. Everything would be all right now, he tells himself, they would all walk back to Winterfell together and the gates would close safely behind them. Perhaps now, finally, Brienne would stop avoiding him, and the Starks might believe his good intentions; from now on things would be easier, more straightforward. He might redeem himself yet in this war for the North.

He really should have known it was never going to be that simple.

It starts as a quiet feeling of dread that the danger has not quite passed, a sense that seems to vibrate in the air around Jaime as the daylight dwindles down and they follow their own footprints back through the Wolfswood. He has forgotten something, or failed to do something, but he can’t imagine what. They’ve found Brienne and the dragon is gone, Arya knows the way back to Winterfell. All should be well, but it isn’t.

Arya doesn’t seem to feel the same unease. She bounds along energetically beside him, quite cheerfully recounting what she could see of the fight with Viserion, with particular emphasis on how funny Jaime had looked running between the dragon’s legs.

If it is anything like Arya looks walking next to Brienne, he comments, it must have been very funny indeed. Undeterred, Arya only adds more details to her commentary to make him look all the more inept, taking pains to tell Brienne all about the trap he had fallen into. She will probably go on finding ways to needle him all the way through the forest, for the fun of it.

Brienne, on the other hand, does not seem to appreciate the humor. She walks in front of them in the deep snow, rarely looking back, and she is awfully quiet – she is often quiet, but you can generally get a response from her even if it is short and peevish. Now she answers only vaguely, and looks neither of them in the face. Her eyes stay fixed to the snow before them as they walk. It’s difficult to make out with her helmet on, shielding much of her face, but she seems to silently wince every now and again.

It is plain to Jaime, from her demeanor, that Brienne does not want them to observe her just now. It’s working well enough on Arya. She doesn’t notice that Brienne is not as aware of her surroundings as she should be, that her stance is too tight and pulled-in when she should be loose and ready to jump into action. That slouch of hers is more pronounced than ever, and the tension in her body tells Jaime more and more what he should have seen when they first set off: Brienne is in pain.

Somehow she’s been injured, and said nothing of it. Of course he should have expected that. After fighting off a dragon almost single-handedly it’s a bloody miracle she’s even alive much less unharmed. Jaime watched her take blows that would have felled most men and seemingly shake them off. Any one of them could easily have damaged her and he should have insisted on a closer look. Now it’s going to be more difficult to slow her down long enough to tend her wounds.

He has his own wounds that need tending, though nothing that can’t wait until they get back to Winterfell. He barely felt the scrapes in his back until the adrenaline of the fight wore off, and only now does the deep ache in his ribcage start a slow and steady throb. Perhaps Brienne didn’t realize either that she had been hurt, and stubbornly refuses to acknowledge it now.

Were it anyone else, he might have pointed it out immediately, and probably made a joke of it as well. But in their present situation, he is reluctant to draw any attention to the possibility. He is clinging to the irrational hope that if none of them notices the problem, it will go away, and she will be well after all.

But her discomfort seems only to increase as they travel. At one point Brienne stops walking and puts a hand to her head, and Arya stares up at her in surprise. “Brienne, are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine,” she says shortly, as soon as she feels Arya’s eyes on her, and right away picks up her pace.

“You know, we don’t have to start back right away, if you need to rest,” Arya speaks up to her back.

Brienne’s voice has no inflection whatsoever, is carefully calibrated to reveal nothing. “I don’t need to rest.”

Arya looks over at him questioningly, and Jaime shakes his head in response. _She’s not fine._ Understanding passes between them of a limited sort, and with it a temporary truce. Then a deep furrow settles into her forehead, and she looks up at Brienne with open concern.

Jaime watches her closely from behind, his unease growing. Her hands are determined fists at her sides as she plods steadily through the snow. In her full armor she is a solid tower of steel plate ahead of them, and it is difficult to believe looking at it that there could be anything breakable underneath. But her helmet is badly dented at the back, and Jaime remembers vividly how Viserion had knocked her against the stone cliff. It had taken his breath away at the time, but she had gotten right back to her feet. She seemed all right. Brienne is always all right. She is always unstoppable.

He’s not sure what to do. It’s hard enough to slow Brienne down when she’s well.  And he’s never seen her badly injured before, not in all the time he’s known her. Bruised and bleeding, yes, but nothing so serious as this, that would affect her so openly. This is something new.

New to him as well is the very notion of taking care of someone at all. For all he has effectively held the Lannister house together for decades, fathered three children, maintained a love affair in secret that lasted much of his adult life, in all of those years he has been a swordsman and conspirator, and not a caretaker. He has never been able to comfort or care for any of them as much as he would have liked. It wasn’t allowed him. Now, in moments like this he is reminded of how very much he does not know how to do.

He lets Arya try instead. She practically has to jog to keep up with the long-legged Brienne, who barrels forward single-mindedly despite the deep snow. All of the girl’s questions go unanswered, and her suggestions that they stop to rest are ignored. No matter what she says or how she tries to slow her down, Brienne brushes her concern aside.

But she is not so invulnerable as she appears. She stumbles to one knee, and shakes off Arya’s helping hands. “I slipped,” she says irritably, and pulls herself back to her feet, wobbling visibly.

Jaime finds himself rushing to her side, could not have stopped himself if he tried. He hadn't known it possible that he could feel real and physical anguish from someone else’s pain. But it happened when Brienne fought the dragon, and it happens now when she falls. It hits him like a kick in the stomach, and he reacts by reflex. As soon as she is standing his left hand grasps her armored right shoulder, his other arm reaching in front of her protectively.

Unexpectedly, she lets him steady her, her eyes flickering only briefly to his face.

Jaime lets that assent reinforce his confidence. “Let me see,” he insists.

He expects Brienne to pull away when he draws close, but she doesn’t. She looks down at him uneasily, but does not retreat. She waits, eyes averted uncomfortably, as Jaime unfastens the chin strap and carefully pulls off her helmet. Arya takes it from him and turns it to look at the dent in the back, her face creasing with worry.

Brienne’s gaze is distant and concerned, as though trying to remember something important. Jaime puts a hand to either side of her face, his stump pressing against her pale hair, holding her head still. Her face is flushed, and still stained here and there with dragon’s blood. “Look at me,” he instructs.

Brienne goes still when he touches her. Her eyes are all pupil, with only a small ring of deep blue around the quivering black. He’s seen this on the battlefield before. That blow to the head was more costly than he had imagined.

“Are you dizzy?” Jaime asks her quietly.

“A bit,” she admits. “It doesn’t hurt so much,” she hastily adds.

“Sit down with me.” He slowly lowers to the ground, pulling her lightly to sit beside him. She obeys without fuss, sinking to her knees and resting her hands in the snow beside her for balance.

This more than anything else alarms him. This sudden strange compliance must mean she feels very poorly indeed. He keeps hold of her shoulders, partly for his own reassurance. She is as solid as ever, and has no visible wounds, but a blow to the head can be very serious, and she had come down hard.

Jaime reaches around to the back of her head to check for a wound. His fingers probe through her hair lightly. There’s no blood, at least.

“I’m fine,” she insists again, but she does not sound fine. She sounds unsure. And when his fingers find an alarmingly large swelling at the back of her head she hisses and recoils sharply.

“No bleeding,” he tells both Brienne and Arya behind her with a level tone, trying not to reveal his alarm. “You haven’t cracked your skull open. Lucky thing you’re so hard-headed.” He smooths back her hair, avoiding the bump. “You do, however, have a minor mountain range emerging on the back of your head.”

“It’s only a headache,” she protests without much energy. “I’m not wounded. There’s nothing wrong with the rest of me.”

“Except your addled wits.” He looks her up and down. Impossible to tell how badly she is hurt - she doesn’t seem drowsy, but her pain is hard to gage. If she’s willing to admit that it hurts at all, it might be terrible. Who knows what’s happening in that head of hers just now. “You need to rest,” he tells her, holding her shoulders again.

She closes her eyes, looking defeated. For a second, she looks as though she might burst into tears -- an unfamiliar expression for Brienne. But she quickly masters her face and sets her mouth in a line of grim determination.

Arya is hovering over them worriedly. “I could run back to Winterfell. Bring back more men with a litter. Now that the dragon is gone, Jon will send them.”

Just as Jaime is ready to agree, Brienne opens her eyes. She looks, if anything, even more pained at that thought. “No. Don’t send anyone else after me, there’s no need to carry me back. I will walk.”

Arya insists. “It won’t take long. I know where to find you, I’ll bring –“

“Absolutely not!” Brienne speaks sharply, startling both of them with her vehemence. “The dragon could come back, and there could be wights in the wood by now. You are not running off on your own. I promised your mother I would get you to Winterfell safely. I promised her…”

The plaintive note in her voice startles them both into silence. _She’s disoriented,_ Jaime thinks. _Has she forgotten Arya has already found her way to safety? Or mixed her up with her sister? The younger one clearly doesn’t need the protection that Sansa does._

Arya must have made the same conclusion. “I’m not a child, I can defend myself. I showed you, remember? I learned to fight. I came back to Winterfell already, and you kept your promise.”

“But I didn’t,” Brienne says in an embittered tone, looking neither of them in the eyes. “I lost you, you and your sister both. You ran from me. And suffered gods-know-what as a result.”

That was not how Arya had told it to him earlier. She had spoken of how Brienne bore her no grudge for having run away. It must not have occurred to the girl that Brienne would blame herself instead.

Before Arya can recover from that, Brienne is saying more. Her eyes flutter shut in a kind of wince as she speaks. “Bad enough the both of you had to come out looking for me. You’re not calling out another squadron of men just to carry me back. And anyway we should not separate, the three of us should stay together.”

“Rest then awhile,” Jaime tries to recommend.

“No,” she insists. “I will not sit here waiting, and I won’t keep you sitting here with me. It isn’t safe. We should go back together, quickly as we can.”

Jaime and Arya both begin speaking at once, trying to persuade her. She waves them off, snatching back her helmet and struggling to her feet. She gets herself upright, but presses a fist hard to her forehead, clearly in pain.

In their time apart Jaime has remembered her stubborn tenacity with fondness, forgetting that, in these moments, Brienne can be incredibly frustrating. She doesn't listen. She will hear all of your well-reasoned arguments, nod shortly to show she understands, and then go and do exactly what she was always going to do anyway.

She isn’t entirely wrong -- the wood almost certainly isn’t safe, particularly after nightfall, and there could very well be wights following after the dragon’s attack. But Brienne is in no condition to fight, and pushing herself to stay on her feet will only make it worse. He fears she will collapse completely at the rate she pushes herself.

“This is inane,” he complains, frustration building as he stands up. “The dragon isn’t coming back anytime soon, and it won’t take long to return help from Winterfell. Sitting here for a spell won’t endanger anyone.  And if there should be danger, I can protect us.”

“It’s unnecessary,” she says tightly, and moves to replace her helmet. “I don’t need help.”

He flinches back from that remark. Doesn’t need help, or doesn’t need _his_ help? Again his aid is rejected. No matter how he tries, no one wants his protection now. He has lost everyone dear to him and all the while they would not listen to him, would not let him save them. Now Brienne too has no use for him, even when she is clearly suffering.

“Can you not relent for single second? Seven hells!” He flings his pack to the ground in frustration, and finds himself shouting at her. “Couldn’t you just trust me for once? You insist on fighting your own way out even when there is no need for it. You don’t have to do everything yourself, I want to help you! Am I so unworthy of that?”

Arya has noticeably stepped back from the both of them following this outburst. She looks back and forth between the two adults in stunned and uncertain silence.

Brienne hesitates, watching him with a pained expression. She turns her helmet over in her hands and chews on her lip, starts to say something and then falls silent again.

“I trust you,” she says finally, with difficulty.

All his frustration drains out of him as though she has pulled the stopper from a bottle. If she still trusts in him, if he has not ruined that, then there is hope. Though why it should be so difficult for her to confess it he cannot imagine.

It occurs now to Jaime that what he has always thought of as stubbornness may be something else instead. It may be that she simply does not know how to let him help her.

He doesn’t know how to help her, and she doesn’t know how to be helped. What a pair they are.

“You stubborn wench,” he grumbles, and picks up his pack. They will have to muddle through this somehow. “You would carry Arya or I back to Winterfell on your own back, but let us try to do the same and you bite off our heads. No, don’t argue the point, you win. We’re walking.”

“I didn't mean anything by it,” she says softly, abashed.

“It doesn’t matter.” Jaime catches her hand in midair, the one not pressed to her forehead. “If we will walk, then follow me. I’m not having you setting off all the traps in the Wolfswood or walking into a tree after we came all this way to find you.”

She starts to argue, and stops herself. He’s already walking ahead, leading her by the hand.

Against all expectations, it works. She follows him. He walks slowly and he takes the easiest way around every obstacle and it’s going to take an entire age to get back to Winterfell but that’s how it will have to be. This is how he can help her. She doesn’t have to think this way, doesn’t have to watch out for danger or find her footing. With almost no hesitation she follows literally in his footsteps.

Arya walks ahead of them both, looking back frequently with a furrowed brow. She seems uneasy but reluctant to interfere. And she is perhaps a little shocked that he would know what to do, and that Brienne would trust him this fully. He's a little shocked at that himself.

Jaime looks back at her from time to time. Her eyes half-closed, Brienne follows him like a sleepwalker. She looks oddly vulnerable despite all her armor, despite that she is covered from head to boot in the black blood of a dragon. Weary and adrift, a little bewildered. Holding onto his hand, she looks a bit like a lost child.

Jaime remembers how she had frozen when he had touched her face, when he had brushed back her hair. She looked startled that he would do such a thing. Brienne must have taken countless blows in her life but a kind touch was strange to her.

 _Has no one ever treated you gently, Brienne?_ he wonders.

He imagines not. She was a large girl before she was a large woman, and must have started young at swordplay. Even well-meaning family had probably considered her a boy at best, and not kissed her scrapes or carried her home in their arms. Of course she is big enough now that only a brute like the Mountain could consider something like that. _I would try it if I could,_ he thinks, looking back at her. _I would be tender with you if you would let me. I think you would like that._

Brienne had been very gentle with him, when he lost his hand. She had bound his wounds, helped him to dress and clean himself when he was out of his mind with the pain of it. She has gentleness in her. Perhaps she has been waiting for someone to return it.

What little light they had is fading now, and a different kind of cold will set in soon. He worries over that thought as they pick their way through the darkening wood. Arya is well-bundled against the cold, but Jaime isn’t wearing nearly enough for the evening freeze, and neither is Brienne in her armor. They could stop and build a fire, but that proposition is going to lead to the same argument all over again. For now they will keep walking.

It’s strangely intimate, holding Brienne’s hand. Particularly when he only has the one. If Jaime stumbles he will have nothing to catch himself with, and no way to draw his blade, because of course he is not going to let go of her. Even as he focuses intently on the terrain, making certain he will not fall into another trap, he has this connection to her through their joined hands. They are in constant communication of a kind. After all he has worried for her today it is a relief to have this reassurance that she is here with him, alive and safe, if not well.

After an hour of this Brienne is dragging on his hand at even this slow pace, squinting painfully against the glare of the snow and pressing the heel of her palm against her forehead. Still she offers not a word of complaint, nor does she ask to stop and rest, even though she plainly needs it. Instead Jaime decides to give her a break.

“There’s a rock in my shoe,” he announces, and promptly sits down on a fallen tree, making a big show of unlacing his boot.

Brienne rolls her eyes at that. Still she sinks down beside him soon after, joining him on the felled tree trunk. She rubs at her face and leaves her head in her hands, breathing out slowly.

“I can still run ahead,” Arya says quietly, hovering over them.

He nods, eyeing Brienne. She doesn’t appear to have heard them this time. “Bring a horse,” he says in an undertone. “I think we can get her on a horse.”

“Stay put here if you can.” She pulls a hood up over her head. “If she allows it.”

This strange accord between Arya and Jaime has held since they found Brienne in the gorge, their earlier animosity seemingly forgotten. They will surely be at each other’s throats again soon enough, but for now it is oddly pleasant to be of one mind, at least on the topic of Brienne.

“As long as I can,” he answers her back seriously.  

Arya nods and takes off at a run, confidently sprinting through the wood. She had been holding back after all. The girl had grown up in these lands – she would probably have found Brienne a lot faster had he not slowed her down, he admits to himself. That’s not what he’s here for after all, it turns out; his duty here is to bring her safely back.

He watches Brienne hunched over, elbows propped against her knees and her upper body resting against them as best she can with all her armor in the way. She’s curling in on herself, all her energy devoted to building a firm wall around her vulnerability, bolstering her defenses as she rests. She is right beside him, and yet very far away.

He could put an arm around her -- she is close enough to do that -- but she would not welcome it, he knows well. Even if she were not unhappy with him, she would not. It is not her way.

He looks around them instead, at the snow falling lightly around them, mingling here and there with the floating ashes of the fire still burning high above them. Its light has grown fainter, but still shines blue in the snow around them. The fires have died back since he first set out from Winterfell, have grown patchy and weak, and it seems the forest will be spared after all. The highest leaves and branches have been stripped away, but the trees will survive.

The crackling sound of burning has died back too, leaving only the pregnant silence of dusk in the deep wood. They are utterly alone here, she and him, with no signs of life anywhere around. Any creatures in the forest must have fled from Viserion’s attack. The trees thick around them leave only the snow to light their way.

Brienne looks up suddenly, scanning the area around them with urgency. “Where’s Arya?”

“Gone ahead,” he says, as casually as he can. “That girl is impatient as hell, and we’re slow.”

Brienne moves to stand, but he keeps her down firmly, holding her arm.

“She’s fine on her own. Better off, probably. She’ll be back by a warm fire in under an hour, unlike us.”

She chews on this idea, torn between wanting to protect the girl and wanting not to slow her down, and seems to fall on the side of getting her home as quickly as possible.

“Unlike us,” Brienne murmurs, relenting. Then she slouches unhappily beside him, staring hard ahead through the swirling snow.

Even through her armor, he can feel her warmth next to him against the blistering cold of the air. Her hair blows a little in the wind, a few tiny curls escaping from behind her ears that give just a hint of softness to her profile. Her hair _is_ very soft, he knows now, from when he had felt for the bump on her head. He thinks of those curls between his fingers. Against his lips. And then he has to look away, before his imagination can run away with him.

To distract himself, he opens his travel bag and looks for the small knife he had brought. “We could build a fire here and warm ourselves awhile.”  

Brienne is already shaking her head. “There are more dangers here than dragons, and at night it will be worse. A fire will only attract attention. We should continue.”

“We won’t be back before nightfall at this rate anyway,” he protests back. “We may as well rest.”

“I’m sorry,” she mutters inexplicably, and looks frustrated. Her face twists with self-reproach, a furrow between her brows. “I hate this. This weakness. All for a stupid bump on the head.”

He gapes at her. “Weakness? You fought a dragon, Brienne. I’m amazed you still _have_ a head!”

She closes her eyes and says something in a low voice that he can’t quite hear.

“You _are_ a madwoman.” Jaime snorts disbelievingly. Only Brienne could be so hard on herself after saving all of Winterfell from a dragon attack. Viserion would still be terrorizing the countryside, perhaps attacking the keep directly by now, had she not driven him away. “Listen: no-one has done for hundreds of years what you just did. Even the greatest knights of old feared to face a dragon, and very few of them ever have defeated one. It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. You have nothing to be sorry for, not one thing.”

“I didn’t defeat it,” she scoffs weakly. “It got away.”

“It fled,” he tells her firmly, lifting her chin with the crook of his finger to be sure she looks him directly in the eyes. It’s very important that she believe him. “It fled in absolute terror of you, and that’s a victory by any standard. You won. You amazing, extraordinary woman, you fought a dragon and won.”

She stares back at him astonished through this speech, her blue eyes wide. He has never seen them so closely before, only inches from his. They begin to glisten and grow watery; then she blinks rapidly and looks away and he lets his hand fall.

“You fought it too,” she points out, quite in earnest. “If you had not distracted it, I doubt I could have gotten out of that crevasse. You wounded it as well, and you retrieved Oathkeeper. I could not have done it without you.”

Her words jog his memory suddenly. _Pierce the dragon’s tail_ , he thinks. _Where did I hear that?_

But he pushes away her credit of him, which is too generous. “You would have defeated it regardless,” he says.

“I would not have been so bold without you,” she confesses, and is for some reason abashed to admit it. It makes him begin to wonder if she might have simply run from Viserion, had he not been in danger himself.  

 _It was Bran,_ he realizes suddenly, and at once loses entirely the thread of what Brienne has said.  Bran Stark had referred to a dragon’s tail in the Godswood, weeks ago, that day when he had somehow looked into Jaime’s heart and stripped him of all his defences. That strange boy had known all of this somehow, had seen him stabbing Viserion with Widow’s Wail at the very moment when Brienne had been slammed into the cliffside. Just as he had known in intimate detail things that Jaime had never told a living soul, he had also seen the future.

 _I have watched,_ he had said. _From this heart tree, I have watched it all. His whole life._

His whole life - all of it? Even to the end? Could he be watching even now? A disquieting thought, one that makes him feel exposed and unhappy. But there could be something to help him here -- some path for him to follow. Bran had predicted that he would fight a dragon, just before he announced that Brienne would die if Jaime did not save her. Has he done it then? Does it mean Brienne will survive? Jaime searches his memory for more details, choosing to focus on her fate instead.

What else had Bran said? Something about a gate, and the kraken. Neither of which seems to have anything to do with Brienne. The kraken would be Euron, Jaime assumes, referring to the house sigil of Greyjoy. Already they are planning to face him with the Golden Company, most likely this too will come to pass. He will be joining them then, at some point. But what’s this he had said about a gate? Jaime can make no sense of that remark. And he had promised Bran that he would come to him when he called, and the boy had been very stern on that point.  

If Bran knows what is to come, then why would he need Jaime to promise anything? It’s beyond his understanding. All of it is. This is not his land, not his people, and he does not know what his role here could be. This war may well be the end of everything, and there is no clear place for him in it. He wants to be of use, but wanting, he knows from bitter experience, is not enough.

Above all else, he wants to protect Brienne, in any way he can. If only the boy would tell him how. He will have to speak to Bran again, try to get something more practical out of him, much as he would prefer never to set eyes on the disquieting youngest Stark again.

“It will be nightfall before long.” Brienne speaks up, breaking into his reverie. Her eyes cast about anxiously. She startles sometimes as though she sees something in the shadows around them, and then settles down again.

Jaime knows they will not have to endure nearly as long as she thinks, and he dismisses her fears casually. “Hmph. Do you think I can’t defend us? You’re not so confident of my sword arm as you have claimed.”

“Jaime.” She sounds endlessly tired. “We can’t sit here all night.”

“Not all night,” he says confidently. “Only a little longer.” _Perhaps an hour for Arya to run to Winterfell from here without us slowing her down,_ he calculates. _Half that to ride back. How long can we rest here? Should we walk a little further?_

No, he wants her to rest as long as possible. That tension around her eyes speaks to pain, and he hates it. She needs to be in a bed, with a maester looking after her.

A clutching pain all around his own torso reminds him that he could also use the rest. He can no longer feel the cold air stinging his back where his jacket and armor have been torn through, which mean his wounds have grown numb. But his ribs still ache when he breathes in.

“You couldn’t, you know,” Brienne says out of nowhere. “Carry me back. I’m too… large.”

He certainly can’t now, but he’s not about to admit that. Instead Jaime smirks back at her. “You’re not as heavy as all that. I’m strong. Take the armor off and we can try it.”

She turns him down, and seems embarrassed by the entire topic. “Gods, no. The only thing worse would be a team of men struggling to lift me on a litter. I’d rather have been eaten by the dragon.”

“Nonsense. We should have tried it before Arya took off,” he says lightly. “She could have carried your armor and Oathkeeper, and I’d take you. But I suppose without a squire we’ll have to walk.”

“Best not call Arya a squire when she's within earshot,” she advises.

Brienne glances over at him from time to time, sidelong. She seems reluctant to turn to look on him completely, not when they are so close together that it would be improper, but seems content to take him in like this, sitting beside him.

“You aren’t wearing it,” she says suddenly, and after a moment of confusion he realizes that Brienne has noticed his right arm, how it stops with his sleeve empty. He left his golden hand in his quarters in Winterfell. It had been sensible at the time, when he was leaving alone, but now that he is with someone the lack of it makes him self-conscious.

He wants to hide it behind his back, but follows the contradictory impulse instead, lifting his sleeve to expose the mess. His right arm terminates in a clutch of bandages. “Yes, hand’s still missing,” he says lightly.

She blinks back at him, undeterred. “I meant your golden one.”

“I left it behind,” he admits slowly, rolling his sleeve back down. “I’ve been leaving it off, when not in company. It’s not terribly comfortable - it presses the scars there unpleasantly. And the gold gets blasted cold in this winter air. It’s like wearing a block of ice at the end of my arm. But it’s no good to go without it either. It only calls attention to my lack of a right hand. If all the lords of the North are going to see me a cripple, I’d rather they notice my  silly gold hand than an ugly stump.”

He trails off, breath hanging visibly in the air between them. He hadn’t meant to tell her so much. _Be quiet,_ Jaime tells himself. _Brienne does not need to hear of your troubles when she is injured. Surely you can stop yourself talking for a few minutes._

“Anyway, I have no need for ornament here,” he finishes. “So I left it.”

“I have never much liked that hand,” Brienne says, and then seems to stop herself as well.

Jaime hangs on that, hoping she will say more. Somehow, obscurely, it does him good to hear it. Perhaps then she would not think less of him if he did not wear the golden hand once in awhile.

Brienne rests her head in her hands. Is she perhaps a little more at ease than before? She seems not so far away, and her shoulders relax slowly from where they had been, up around her ears. But she is still tired and hurting, and needs to recover.

He looks her over more closely now. Her armor is severely battered from the fight - they shall have to have it repaired. Given the dents and breaks, she must have more wounds underneath that she has not told him of. Not all of the blood staining her plate is black. Nothing he can do for that now, she would never allow him to remove it and see. He can only hope it is nothing so severe as the injury to her head.

 _She’s always been like this_ , he thinks. _She will not relent or show weakness, not to anyone._  

It’s not just the Brave Companions, that terrible night he had remembered before jumping into the gorge.  He had seen the walls around her then and thought them newly built, but in the years since he has found they are always there, and maybe always have been. Those walls are not only meant for enemies. It isn’t only him that she is prickly and guarded with, even in the best of times. It’s everyone.

it may be that no one in the world has ever seen the woman beneath the armor and the grimace and the stern foreboding, the woman behind these walls of protection she keeps around herself. He himself has had only glimpses. Each one was enough to flatten him where he stood, in something like awe. When they had said goodbye on the King’s Road, when she had come to him in his Commander’s tent. All those times he was struck speechless.

And then she had fled. Sometimes literally fleeing from him, as she had at Riverrun. Other times retreating behind propriety and politeness, behind a hard barrier that slams shut across her face. Could it be that she has never stopped fleeing him?  

He looks at her now, steeling herself against the cold when she could easily slide closer to him for warmth. Shielding her pain, hiding it, keeping it safe behind her armor and her expression. She will not show weakness or injury if she can help it. Instead she’ll hide, and protect herself, and deal with it alone.

 _Brienne isn’t angry with me,_ Jaime suddenly realizes. _She’s wounded._

Before the dragon attack, before he even came to Winterfell, she has been guarding some wound from him. Has he hurt her somehow? Or did someone else? Whatever has changed between them, she is protecting herself now. Even more than she had before, and for some reason especially from him. Ever since he came north she has striven to put distance between them. She has even hidden herself away so that he would not see her or try to speak to her. She hasn’t done that with anyone else -- she spends time with Arya, and Sansa, and Pod. It’s only him she will not see.

This is important, he senses, it could be the key to everything. If he only knew what to do about it.

Suddenly Brienne straightens, sits ramrod straight and squares her shoulders. Only then is he aware that he has been staring, and she has just noticed it. Her eyes flicker to his for only a moment, but even that brief contact is stunning in its reproach. Then she pulls herself to her feet.

“I’m ready to walk again,” she announces.

Jamie stands up beside her reluctantly, stretching his arms over his head in a deliberately lazy gesture. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather relax before a fire instead? No? Well, I suppose we can walk again awhile.”

He takes her hand again, and she allows it. It feels only natural to do this now, to hold her hand as they walk together. In this fraught moment they are at least allowed this one simple pleasure, disguised as it is by necessity. He still guides her around obstacles using his left hand to lead, but he is not much faster now to walk through the snow than she is. Their resting time seems to have rejuvenated her somewhat, but it has only made him more drawn and worried.

Jaime is increasingly tiring, and it makes him prattle on even more than he might typically to fill the silence. If there is anyone looking for them in the wood, they will surely hear him coming. Hopefully there will be only friendly faces to find them here.

“One day,” he muses as he leads Brienne around a trap, struggling to pull his boots out of the wet snowdrifts around it, “surely, I will get better at plodding through this snow. I would think after journeying to Winterfell I would be fairly expert at it, but it turns out there are so many _kinds_ of snow. Soft, hard, wet, powdery, icy, sometimes layers of it mixed together in various ways. I can’t believe I ever thought it could be amusing to play in the snow. Once this winter is over, I hope I never see it again.”

He looks up at her carefully. She is frowning in concentration at her own steps. “You’ve had a year or more longer in the North than I, do you ever grow used to it? It seems I never will. I miss the sun and the sea all of the time, and this cold is unbearable. I fear my feet will never be warm again.”

Brienne does not say much in response, even when he questions her directly. But it seems to comfort her a little. She turns to him now and then and stares hard at his profile like she is trying to memorize it, hold it fast in her mind. He pretends not to see that, afraid she will only look away.

He is so focused on their trail and not falling over or leading Brienne into a pit, that it takes some time for Jaime to realize what is responsible for the strange rustling, whispering sounds he has been hearing. A sense of presence has been gathering around them, and his unease has grown with it, but he doesn’t take the time to really look hard at the shifting shadows all around them until the dim figures around them become too obvious to deny.

He fears they are wights, the first wave of attack following in the shadow of Viserion. But wights would not hesitate to attack them, not lurk in the shadows and stalk their prey. That is the behavior of animals, a pack of them.

 _Wolves,_ Jaime realizes.

_We’re surrounded by wolves._

There are only a few shapes in sight, but he’s certain there are more beyond them. An entire pack, a fair army of wolves, circling all around them. Once he knows to look for them he sees more and more. Their eyes gleaming in the moonlight where it catches. Dozens and dozens of them.

He itches to draw his sword but he would have to let go of Brienne to do it, and he hesitates to raise any alarm. Any sudden movements may draw an attack from the pack, and he doesn’t know what Brienne will do in her current weakened state.

She squeezes his hand suddenly and her eyes meet his, and all at once he knows she sees them, has been seeing them for some time. As one they stop walking and look at each other, and look beyond each other, at the danger that surrounds them.

Brienne squeezes his hand again, just as he tries to draw his sword. She doesn’t want him to let go of her.

He glares back at her. If they don’t make a show of force now, the pack may sense weakness and descend upon them. They will be torn to pieces the very second one of them smells their fear.

 _Then don’t be afraid,_ she tells him silently, with her eyes, with the way she pulls his hand closer to her and resumes walking.

They walk. The wolves walk too. They pace them exactly, drawing no nearer and no farther, and the wood whispers with their movements, there are so many. It looks like the forest itself is moving, out into the distance before them and behind. Jaime glimpses them in all directions, even more of them than he had thought, hundreds maybe.

Brienne must know something he doesn’t, that she can be so confident. She is only a little unnerved, it seems. That should be a relief, but he’s not sure how much her wits are about her.

He doubts his own wits as well, by now. It’s like a dream. Like he and Brienne had fallen asleep back where they had rested sitting on the tree and dreamt of this together, the wolf pack escorting them to Winterfell like visiting monarchs through a kingdom of snow. Winterfell feels worlds away from this, Winterfell and any human settlement. Any civilized concern is a distant memory.  He looks at her face in the eerie blue light of the still-burning forest and she looks back at him and for this fantastical moment she is his and he is hers. They are the only two people in the world, in this terrible, wonderful dream.

It goes on for some time, Jaime and Brienne walking silently through the wood, hand in hand.

Gradually, in this time, they are slowing down, He’s not sure how much farther either of them can walk. Brienne’s eyes begin to drift shut while she’s still walking, and she stumbles here and there, until he puts his arm around her waist and guides her more carefully. If they were not surrounded, he would have insisted on stopping to rest long ago, but he does not know what the wolf pack will do. They must go on.

Jaime watches the wolves cautiously. If they should attack, it’s not clear that Brienne could raise her sword now. He would defend her to his last breath, but there are so many. So long as they don’t approach, he keeps Widow’s Wail in its scabbard, and holds his breath.

Then all at once the wolf pack parts for them soundlessly, retreats behind them with watchful yellow eyes, and they can hear horses approaching.

Three horses appear, two of them ridden by Arya and Podrick Payne, who must have accosted Arya on her way into Winterfell. They ride huge Northern wagon horses who tramp through the snow effortlessly, clearing up great clouds of powder all around them. With the threat of dragon attack gone for now, they will be able to ride without the possibility of spooked horses throwing them and racing away, which will shorten their journey considerably.

Podrick swings down from his mare and approaches them with great concern and a bit of  disapproval, looking askance at Jaime’s arm around her, and he can tell the lad would fight him for her if he thought he had to, to preserve her honor, and it makes him fonder of the squire. Assuredly it doesn't belong there, his arm around her, but he worries she would slump over without it.

When he reaches her side, Pod looks mostly relieved. “My Lady, Ser, I’m so glad you’re alright. We were so worried when you didn’t return.”

Brienne smiles at him faintly. “Pod. You got the men back to the Keep? Did Oswald make it?”

“He did, milady, though we were practically carrying him most of the way.”

“Well done, Pod.”

Young Podrick glows under this rare praise, though it makes him worried as well. He gives Jaime a quizzical look; already he can tell she is not herself.

Arya crosses carefully into their line of vision, and sounds forcibly upbeat. “Brienne, we have a horse for you, though I’m afraid you might have to share it with Ser Goldenarse here. Assuming you don’t want to abandon him in the woods?”

“Arya,” she says warningly, and her three companions brace for her to refuse their help. “No one’s abandoning anyone. We can ride back together.”

“That is,” Jaime puts in, “if you can still ride.”

“Of course I can still ride,” Brienne replies back, and she glares at him briefly as if she knows exactly what he is doing but cannot help herself anyway. She approaches the horse and gathers her strength a moment, then swings up and over the saddle. Ungraceful, but securely mounted.

Arya steps out from their small party, watching the wolves. They have gathered behind them in a line, watching balefully. _Does she somehow know them?_ He had heard rumor of a great pack in the North, lead by a direwolf, and all of the Stark children had direwolves once. What was it she had called hers?

He approaches her carefully. Now would not be a good time to antagonize her.

“Are you doing this?” Jaime asks her. “Are they yours?”

“Not really,” Arya shrugs. She turns her back on the great wolfpack with no fear at all. “Nymeria does what she wants. She’s like me.”

A hundred eyes shine in the moonlight behind her, and Jaime swallows hard. “Just so they aren’t going to attack us.”

Arya laughs, completely unconcerned. She crosses behind him to her mount. “Better keep that hair covered then. I don’t think they like Lannisters.”

Hurriedly, he swings up onto the third horse behind Brienne. Places his hand and his stump against her waist and expects her to shrug them off with a rebuke, but she says nothing, perhaps too tired to notice or care. He is strangely disappointed at that, but keeps hold of her anyway. It might be tricky to keep balance in this terrain.

Fortunately the riding isn’t difficult. This horse seems to know the way, and follows the other two horses without much input from either of them. They could both be asleep in the saddle and it would find the way back.

The horses aren’t traveling fast, barely cantering, but the riders sway with their steps just the same and it must be distinctly uncomfortable for Brienne. He can feel her wince at every jolt, though he tries to hold her steady. At least it will be faster this way, and she won’t have to expend the effort of walking, but the ride is far from pleasant.

They’ve done this before, of course. In the Riverlands they had been tied together atop a horse for days and days. He had leaned on her then, sick with blood loss, her presence the only comfort in all the world. Now she falls back against him lightly, and he steadies her until the reigns are loose in her hands and he is forced to reach around her to take them up. Uses his left hand to hold them, and his right arm to hold her.

For awhile he closes his eyes and simply takes in the sensation of that, his arms around her. He will want to remember it later.

The wolves still follow. He can catch a glimpse of them here and there, at a distance, though less and less often as they come closer to Winterfell. By the time they emerge from the Wolfswood and approach the gates of the keep, none of their escort remains. Jaime wonders if they live there in the Wolfswood of if Arya had summoned them there somehow. What might they do when the army of the dead comes? If they will attack the wights, that could be a great help, assuming they aren’t turned. He shudders and gives up that thought. An army of undead wolves is too much for him to contemplate just now.

The gates of Winterfell close behind them, and they cross an eerily empty courtyard inside. In the stables they ease Brienne off the horse slowly, Jaime balancing her carefully as she swings her leg over and Podrick steadying her way down to the ground. Jaime follows her down quickly and takes her arm. She closes her eyes at that, the torchlight seemingly too bright for her aching head.

She leans on him a little bit more now, even more unsteady than before. “We’re nearly there,” he says quietly, as they are walking her out.

“Thank you,” Brienne whispers. She has that look on her face again, the one he doesn’t understand, that one that is both sad and fond. Her eyes meet his only briefly, but it warms him all through, that look. It makes his heart skip in his chest.

Suddenly he is overwhelmed with tenderness towards her. He knows she may never again allow him to be so close to her. When they’re nearly outside he stops her and she leans against the stable wall with her hands against his chest for balance and he wishes he could convince her to let him stay with her, to take care of her. He knows now that he can. He could do that better than anyone, he is sure of it.

He draws nearer, near enough to put his lips to the shell of her ear.

“I lied,” he tells her. “I was a terrible mess when you didn’t come back, Brienne. I was so frightened for you.”

He can feel her breath against his neck, how it hitches at his words.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” she says back softly.

He draws back to look her in the face, and reaches up to carefully tuck an errant curl of white-blonde hair behind her ear. Caresses her, just a little, while she will let him. “What have I done to hurt you, Brienne? Tell me, and I’ll make it right.”

She looks back down at him with those big blue eyes, and what he sees in them is longing, the same kind of longing that is probably all over his face. But she only says, “you can’t.”

Then Sansa comes running, and Brienne is pushing Jaime away, lightly but unmistakably.

“Don’t follow me,” she tells him, and she looks so miserable saying it that he is determined to disobey -- though surely, he reminds himself, it is only that she is ill and in pain that makes her look so sorry, she doesn’t feel the way that he does.

Sansa embraces her lady knight hard, ignoring Jaime completely, staining her fine cloak and furs with black dragonblood. “Brienne, thank the gods,” she exclaims fiercely against her chest. When she focuses on Brienne’s dazed expression, her body language tight with pain, the eldest Stark daughter takes command of the situation immediately. “You’re hurt. Bring her back to my quarters, the Maester will meet us there.”

“I can walk,” Brienne insists quietly, and totters slowly into the keep, refusing all aid, Winterfell guards following her tentatively at each elbow.

Pod and Arya follow them inside without a backwards glance, leaving Jaime alone at the stable entrance, staring after them. The courtyard is completely empty; everyone must still be hiding from the dragon inside the Keep. Someone should probably tell them Viserion is gone. Brienne defeated him, blinded him, chased him away. He’ll tell them himself. Later.

Jaime slides to the ground and realizes he is utterly used up. He hasn’t had a moment’s rest since the dragon appeared, and come to think of it, his body is extremely cross with him for the punishment he has put it through in the last half a day. He can feel the cold touch of the stable door behind him directly against the welts in his skin where the dragons scales have rent his coat and cut through his leather cuirass, and he hopes idly he isn’t bleeding all over their door, they will probably blame him for that too.

The pain in his chest is still there each time he breathes in. He’s probably cracked a rib or two.

He leans his head back against the door and focuses on breathing past the ache and he’s not going to be able to catch up to Brienne after all, not like this. His knees have gone weak. He had been so focused on her all along, and now that she’s out of sight the full realization of everything that’s happened washes over him. They fought a dragon together, she and him. Valyrian swords can damage them. If only he’d realized at Highgarden, he could have -- but they are so unimaginably big, and a single blow could kill a man. He’d gotten very lucky back there. If the sword hadn’t come loose when it did, he could have been clawed to death, or eaten, or burned. He could have fallen to his death from the dragon’s jaws if he had dropped from only a little bit higher, or if he had hit stone instead of snow. And Brienne… Brienne could have died a dozen different ways, and she had hit a rock wall hard enough to break a steel helmet. He had to help her walk, had to help her off a horse, Brienne who has always been unbreakable. He has never seen her look like that before, fragile and frightened. The Maester could make her well again, couldn’t he?

He is so absorbed in these thoughts that he doesn’t notice his brother until he is upon him.

“I cannot believe you,” Tyrion is saying, taking hold of him by the shirt. He sounds both relieved and furious at once. Clearly someone has spread the word of their journey already.

“Nice to see you too.”

“Fighting a dragon,” his brother scolds him. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute. You stupid, stupid asshole.”

“It was Brienne,” he tells him. “She fought the dragon. She gouged its eye out using Oathkeeper like a pike, and it screamed so loudly I swear the earth trembled under us -- she was incredible, Tyrion, I wish you could have seen…”

He trails off at the sight of Arya Stark bodily dragging Sam Tarly in his direction. Which is the wrong way. They should be going inside, where Brienne is. But no, she deposits him right at Jaime’s feet and points at him and she’s saying he’s hurt, which is ridiculous, Brienne is the one who’s injured, not him.

“Be quiet, idiot,” Arya says when he tries to speak up.

“More names,” Jaime grumbles while Sam prods at his back. “This is what I get for my trouble. I brought Brienne back in one piece and I get called an idiot.” He hisses as something Sam presses just under his shoulder blade jolts pain all around his chest - he has _definitely_ broken a rib.

“Stop acting like one then,” Arya snaps back.

“Hey, only I get to call him that,” he hears Tyrion saying. “He’s _my_ idiot brother.”

Then Sam is taking off Jaime’s ruined coat and someone is shushing Tyrion and Arya alike and it’s Gilly, in a full motherly scold somewhere overhead, telling them to stop all the name-calling for Gods’ sake, and it would have been strangely pleasant if he didn’t hurt all over right now.

Sam is dabbing at the cuts on his back, which will need bandaging, and possibly sewing up. For now he applies a cloth gauze, cleaning the scrapes carefully. “You’re in a fair bit of trouble, you know. Jon is unhappy with you for setting out after Brienne after he told you not to. He understands why, but It sets a bad example for the men.”

“My brother? Insubordinate?” Tyrion scoffs. “How completely unexpected. And he was such a good example up until now.”

Jaime winces at another jolt of pain.

“Sam,” he asks, “what will they do for Brienne?”

Arya describes her symptoms in detail while Sam is wrapping something around Jaime’s chest to hold his injured rib in place, pulling it tight. Injury to the head without bleeding, Sam repeats, thinking on his Citadel books. But she’s awake and can walk, more or less. She should recover with rest and quiet, he says. Several days abed, no exertion, nothing loud or startling.

“Good thing there’s a war on,” Jaime says darkly. “No exertion, nothing loud or startling. There should be loads of peace and quiet once we’re all dead.”

Now Gilly is telling _him_ to be quiet, and he laughs to himself at that.

“You’ll need to rest too,” Sam tells him, replacing his coat carefully over the bandages. “No swordfighting for a few days. Let this mend,” he pokes at Jaime’s broken rib. “My lessons can wait.”

“Nothing can wait,” he protests. “We may have turned back the dragon, but the dead army cannot be far behind. The siege is surely only days away.”

Tyrion clasps a hand to his shoulder. With Jaime on the ground they’re the same height, and his brother’s going to take full advantage of that to lecture him. “You’re going to recover first if I have to have you tied to a bed. The walls will hold without you, believe it or not, and there will be plenty of siege to fight in. You know as well as I do this will be a long winter, and you can be fresh to the fighting when you’re well.”

He smiles back at his brother. As reckless as he had been, he is glad to be back alive after all. “You were right, it was a stupid thing to do. Running after her. It turns out I do a lot of stupid things.”

Tyrion embraces him fiercely enough to make him wince.

“You do, but I forgive you,” his younger brother says, and Jaime thinks he might mean everything by it.

When he stands again he feels a good deal better with his ribs bound and wounds bandaged. He could use a meal and a long sleep, but he no longer feels like collapsing on the floor. Pulling on his coat again, he looks around the empty courtyard. “We should let the lords know the dragon is retreated. They’ll want to have men out at first light to scout.”

“Let me worry about that,” Tyrion says, already conferring excitedly with Sam about the implications of the dragon’s defeat. It may be some time before their enemy can persuade the dragon to fly again, without an eye, if the wound doesn’t outright kill it. Can you kill something that’s already dead? Can a dead thing heal its wounds, or will they fester? Jaime leaves them debating that point in the Courtyard.

He doesn’t return to his room, despite promising his brother he would. There is one last thing he must do before he can rest.

He walks for what feels like an age through the Godswood, trudging tiredly through the snow that is finally starting to accumulate there. There’s no escort of guards this time, they’re all back in the Keep, perhaps waiting for the word to be given that it’s safe to come out.

He’s pretty sure Arya is still following him. She’s either a vulture waiting for him to fall or a watchdog to make sure he doesn’t, and who the hell knows which anymore. He’s not going to worry about it now.

He finds his way to the heart tree in the half-dark, lit only by moonlight and snow, and of course Bran is still there, cradled in its roots. He would not take refuge in the Keep during an attack, though he probably should. He seems to be here most of the time now.

“Have I done it?” he asks the boy. “Did I save her?”

Bran looks up.

His face crumbles.

“I don’t know,” he says.

Jaime goes very still. The boy hangs his head again and says nothing more. He puts a hand to either side of his face and holds it there, as if trying to block all sound and listen harder to something very faint and far away.

Slowly, Jaime approaches him. The Heart Tree looms large over him, and the great face carved into it still glares at him disapprovingly. But there is something different about it this time, he can feel it now. That uncanny power that he had sensed when he first came here, the sense of presence that filled him with apprehension, it’s gone. The tree is only a tree.

Bran rocks back and forth, slowly, still listening as hard as he can. His face is not impassive the way it was before. He looks scared. He looks like a boy again.

Jaime drops to his knees before him, as much because he’s too tired to stand as to come nearer. He wonders if Arya is lurking nearby, if she might be close enough to hear them. He doesn’t think so, the other trees are too far away, and there is no one else there for her to imitate their face. Unless she can make herself invisible, which he supposes is possible, given everything else. There’s nothing to be done for it either way.

“Is it gone? Is it all gone?” he guesses.

The boy nods his head, and without looking up, says, “I can’t hear it anymore. I can still call the ravens, still be a raven, but the weirwoods have gone silent.”

It means very little to Jaime, but he supposes that's a yes. Bran’s lost his visions somehow, the visions he now knows for certain are genuine. This is very bad.

Bran speaks up suddenly, his voice full of anguish. “I’m cut off. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now -- I think I knew this would happen, but I can’t remember what comes next!” He sounds more human than he has since Jaime returned to Winterfell, and there is something terrible in that. The boy is bereft, like a bird with its wings clipped.

Jaime thinks on their daily War Councils, of strategy. What Brienne had said to the council, when they had dismissed her. An enemy who diverts to the strongholds, strongholds he would guess now each have their own Godswoods. What might they do there? Find the trees with faces and silence them?

“Did the white walkers do this?” Jaime asks.

Bran nods miserably. “I think yes. But I don’t know anymore. I used to know so much. I knew… everything. I could see things as they are now and I could see them extending back into the past, all the way back, all at once. See a shovel and see its forging, the iron being dug from the hillside, the tree growing that would be cut down to make the shaft. I had only to reach back through the weirwood, where time turns and spools out in all directions at once. But if I reach now there’s nothing. The roots, the roots don’t reach anymore. Yes, the army of the dead has silenced the weirwoods as they swept through the North, it happened gradually from corner to corner, and now I see only the shovel, and I can’t follow the iron and the wood. It’s been a little worse every day and today it’s been completely silent.”

When Bran looks him in the face he no longer looks wise and aged beyond his years; he looks much more like an ordinary boy of four-and-ten with a terrible burden on his shoulders.  

”And now they come here. Here, to Winterfell, and to me.”

“They’re coming for _you_?”

Bran gestures, encompassing everything around him. They could come for Bran, the three-eyed raven, for the godswood, or for Little Sam, or Jon the King in the North, or something else altogether. It could be any of those things, or all of them, but most certainly they will be coming here. The dragon, the dead, and the Night’s King. Winterfell will be no incidental target on a wave across the North but the very center, where every last foe will fall on them and keep falling until everyone on at least one side is dead.

“Don’t tell my brother and sisters,” Bran instructs him. “I don’t want to frighten them.”

 _But you don’t mind frightening ME,_ Jaime thinks ruefully, but he doesn’t say it. Instead he says: “Is that what you needed me to do for you? To defend you when they come?”

“I don’t remember,” Bran says miserably. There is still something otherworldly and inhuman about him, but being cut off from the weirwoods makes him vulnerable and unhappy. “I was so sure about it, that I would need you. But now I don’t know why or what it was you were going to do. I was going to call you with a raven, and you would come. You will still, won’t you? I think it's very important. I think it’s more important than anything.”

“I will come,” Jaime tells him firmly. “Whatever it is you need me to do. I don’t know why you would need me and not Jon or any of the others, but you must have seen it the same way you saw Brienne and I fighting the dragon.”

“Promise me,” Bran says. “I know I was sure about it, but I can’t see it now. Promise me you will come.”

“I gave my word, and I will. And I will defend you from the white walkers, if truly they come for you.” Jaime had not planned to make any such promise, but he is not surprised to find himself making it. It’s like it was with Arya; he is responsible for him. “But tell me, if you please: what did you see of Brienne? You feared that she would not survive. Was it the dragon you saw, or something else?”

Bran looks oddly canny for a second, as though he knows a good deal more than he is about to say. “I saw many things. Viserion was one. I’m afraid there is a good deal more to face, for her and for you.” He is downcast again, and looks very young. “I did what I could, I think. I told each of you what I thought you most needed to know. I was hoping, in the end, that you might take care of each other.”

Jaime is startled. “Each of us? What did you tell Brienne?”

“You’ll have to ask her that.” Bran smiles sadly. “I should have asked Meera what to do. Even when I knew everything, Meera understands certain things better than I do. But I’d already sent her away by then, and I had to guess. You did well in the Wolfswood, but there is very little time left, and much still to do.”

“Can I persuade you to speak more clearly? Some instructions would be most helpful.” Jaime cannot help being irritated with him - he has never had any use for prophecy, and this vaguery is more frustrating than useful.

“I’m afraid not. What we need is for you to become a new man, and there are no instructions for that. I think you must find your own way, or else it would not be real. It would not be you. Do you see?”

This is probably as clear as he can be, Jaime imagines. If only a boy, Bran is still a boy who talks to trees and roots and birds and not people.

“It’s already started. You are changing, slowly but surely. Just keep going.” Bran is trying to sound encouraging, but it falls strangely flat. It comes across very much like someone translating from another language who hasn’t got the full grasp of it. Conveying emotions has only passing familiarity with now.

It also feels, at once, weirdly reversed. It is Jaime who should be trying to comfort Bran, who has all the world on his shoulders, and is only a boy.

It is one thing to be faced with the three-eyed-raven, who seems to know everything and fear nothing, and know that he has made him that way. It is another thing to be faced with a frightened and overwhelmed boy just Tommen’s age. Tommen who had sat on the Iron Throne with a crown on his head and tried so hard to save the kingdom. And Tommen, at least, could still run and play. Could still walk.

Bran, Jaime reminds himself pointedly, did not stay in the Godswood out of stubbornness if nobody came to fetch him during the dragon attack. _He can’t walk_. He has only a chair with wheels on it that sits perhaps twenty feet away and requires someone to move it.

Jaime had done that to him. He had taken Bran’s legs away, just as Vargo Hoat had taken his own hand. What had been for him an unpleasant moment had damaged this boy forever.

A dark wave of revulsion hits him at that thought, one that takes his breath away. He tries to push it back, lest it drown him. Such feelings do no one any good.

“Do you want to go back into the keep?” he asks Bran steadily. “I can bring you.” He nods to the chair a little way away.

“I will stay here a little longer and listen. Arya will bring me back.” The boy nods slightly over Jaime’s shoulder, confirming his suspicion that the Stark sister had followed him there.

“Is that a prophecy?”

Bran smiles a little. “A prediction.”

Jaime sits there some time longer after that, despite that there is nothing more to say. He doesn’t imagine that his presence is all that comforting, but it’s probably better than nothing. The boy seems to be grateful for the company, or at least does not protest it. In time his head nods against his chest, and Jaime listens to him snoring lightly, looking up at the stars so clear and bright above them. He leaves him there like that, asleep in the arms of the weirwood tree, and begins another long walk back to his quarters for some much needed rest.

Or anyway, so he had intended.

But when he heavily, finally, opens the door to his quarters he finds Brienne in his bed. Podrick is at her side, sitting on the floor. When the door opens he jerks his head up as though he has been waiting for exactly this moment for some time.

“It’s much quieter here, Ser,” he whispers, rising.

Brienne is fast asleep, out of her armor, one arm thrown over her head as if to blot out the world. She must have changed her mind about wanting to stay away from him, or else missed her own bed enough to risk it.

It does him some obscure good to see her there, in the bed he has been sleeping in, after he had so feared for her. A kind of secondhand embrace, to have her here, and safe, and resting. And, Jaime tells himself, trying to think of it less romantically, it will be easier to find her here, better than creeping around trying to check on her amongst the other soldiers.

“Of course,” he whispers back, agreeing immediately. She can have her quarters back; he supposes it’s his turn to sleep in the barracks this time. “I’m glad. I’ll go then, and retrieve my things later.”

Her squire stops him. “No, you should stay. That is… the Maester gave her something to make her sleep, and told me to keep her abed. And well, I can’t sit with her all of the time, and it would be a great help if you could watch her as well. In case she needs anything. ”

“I don’t think she wants that,” he says regretfully. “I’m sure you’re up to the job, Podrick, and I can ask Sam to relieve you.”

“No,” Pod protests, then lowers his voice with a quick look over his shoulder. “I know what she says, milord, but— milady wants you here, I’m sure of it.“

Jaime is skeptical. “Did she tell you that?”

“She would never say so, Ser. I don’t know that she _can_ , to tell the truth. But I think… I think she needs you right now, Ser. You especially. Please stay.”

The squire looks so worried and miserable that Jaime cannot help but be sorry for him. He is really and truly devoted to Brienne, and she has never been hurt like this before. This is a shock to all of them.

And still there is what Bran had said, about taking care of each other. He would do that for her, if he can.

“You’re a good lad, Podrick.” He steals a look at her. She’ll sleep for hours still, will probably never know he was here. “Go and get some sleep. I’ll stay with her until the morning, and you can relieve me when you come back.”

Pod nods, looking relieved. “Thank you, Ser. And thank you, Ser, for bringing her back.”

Jaime spends most of that night in the chair by the fire, idly looking at a book Tyrion had left behind about the Long Night. The reading is not terribly cheery, and he finds it difficult to concentrate. It keeps making him think of Bran, looking so small and frightened as soon as his siblings could not see. And no wonder – they face a new Long Night, and as the book keeps saying, the night is long and full of terrors. A hard knot settles in his throat. Will he be able to protect Bran, as he has promised to? He shouldn’t have made promises he can’t keep.

Brienne sleeps soundly for all those hours, still as a stone, so much so that he wants to shake her just to be sure she’s still breathing. It must be as Sam said, a deep and restorative sleep. She stirs not at all, even when the sounds of morning start up all around them and voices come up and down the corridors.

Jaime dozes off a few times, but never for long. He keeps seeing Viserion looming over him, Viserion crushing Brienne against the rock cliff. He jerks awake each time and walks over to the bed to look at her, to see with his own eyes that she is alive and whole. It’s remarkable, what she has done. He doubts even the Sword of the Morning could have turned back a dragon the way she did, nor any of the knights of the tales he had so loved as a boy. Alone, trapped, with no training to face such a creature. Incredible. But this is no story, and she is not an invulnerable legend but a person of flesh and blood. A blow to the head will fell her like any man, and she will keep fighting to her last breath despite it. As soon as she’s well again, she’ll be wherever the fighting is thickest and the danger most dire. The thought of it fills him with dread.

She could have died today. Right in front of him.

It’s going to be like this all along, isn’t it? And the Night could be very long indeed.

Eventually he sits on the floor beside her bed and listens to her soft and even breathing until his worries diminish enough to lay his head against his arms and sleep a bit. His dreams are all snow then, blanketing and enveloping snow that covers everything, inside and outside, in a peaceful silence.

When he next looks up, the light is stronger still, and there are voices all up and down the corridors as the routine activities of the day begin. The Keep must be getting back to normal again, with no further sightings of a dragon. This is a reprieve of sorts. Soon enough the siege will be upon them, but at least a few days more will be without fighting, will allow the Northmen to move freely and enjoy what daylight is available to them. The relief in the air is nearly audible.

Podrick must have needed his sleep – it’s long past dawn, and he has not returned. The poor squire must have waited at the gates for them the entire day, after fleeing the dragon himself and practically carrying a man to safety. He should take a morning to laze abed while they still can.

At once Jaime turns his head to the bed and finds Brienne’s blue eyes open and watching him, her expression unreadable.

It takes him a full minute to realize it isn’t a dream.

“Are you all right?” he asks quietly. “How do you feel?”

She doesn’t answer. She blinks at him slowly, perhaps still half-asleep.

He hopes Pod was right about her wanting him here. If he was wrong, she is probably trying to figure out how to make him go away.

“Do you want me to leave?” He asks it reluctantly. He has to be sure.

At first he isn’t sure she understands him. She seems groggy and addled from whatever they had given her to make her rest. He starts to repeat himself. “Do you—“

She interrupts him – softly, but clearly. “No.”

Then she turns over onto her other side, and goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooooo. Here we start getting to see a little bit more of Brienne, and I can start fleshing out all the ways TV!Brienne is different from Book!Brienne. She's much older and has been on her own a lot longer, and consequently is more prickly and defensive. She's hard on herself, and less optimistic and naive. I dislike how the show removes her vulnerability but you can also see it as deeply buried and carefully defended, and that's the characterization I'm going to run with.
> 
> Also - Bran Unplugged! You'll have to go with me on that one, my interpretation of Bran is perhaps a bit different and I thought this would be an interesting direction to take him. 
> 
> Next time: Jaime and Pod have to keep Brienne in bed for three days. This might actually be more difficult than fighting a dragon. Also: Danaerys Targaryen has unfortunate timing.


End file.
